Phantasmaphilia
by Desdemona Kakalose
Summary: ."Oh, Edgar. Poor, dear, down-trodden Edgar. You lack perspective, my dear. Let's get lost in thought--I will be your tour guide." Vargas style almost-slash, AU. Scriabin makes an oddly good Cheshire cat.
1. Down the Rabbit Hole

_**Phantasmaphilia** - to love one who does not exist, or the creation of one's own mind_

**This story is dedicated to Zarla, who is not only the near single handed creator of the Nny/Edgar slashdom, but also is a literary GENIUS who should really have a book in print so I could recomend it to my non-nerdy friends. Where'd she dissapear off to anyways?**

--

And I swear I know your face, I just don't know who you are.

Turn out the Lights in this place and

You shine like a star

...Like you're right in my ear,

Whispering that you want to _own_ me,

_Control_ me

-_Closer_

He woke up in the morning, rested and ready to go, for once. He vaguely wondered what dream had rolled through the dark labyrinth of his mind those last few hours--something interesting no doubt, because he could still feel a buzzing sense of excitement in his chest and almost a smile on his face.

A pleasant dream was unusual for him, a welcome change from the nightmares of starving children and red-eyed demons of his typical nights. Ten years, and _still_ here they were.

The man slid out of bed and grabbed a non-descript shirt from his equally non-descript closet, and paused. He felt a strange need to dress with interest today. Heaven knew why, since he'd probably feel ridiculous after an hour of filing paperwork.

But still, his hand reached into the depths of that doomed closet and pulled out a purple shirt, resplendent in its silky, Chinese scripted glory. The little 'dream' symbol was subtly placed, but in his mind this was nothing short of a seventies disco.

What the hell, live a little.

Enjoying his rare moment of energy, the brown haired man slipped on his clothes and nearly skipped into his kitchen whistling the introduction to a Billy Joel song… something about masks…

A quick breakfast was whipped up, a bland if nutritious mixture of juice and buttered toaster waffles. For the first time in years, he wondered if maybe he should try something different for breakfast, maybe a cinnabun?

The man stopped beside a hall mirror, sparing a second of his scheduled morning to contemplate his own reflection. Muddy green eyes behind round, thin-rimmed glasses stared back at him over his just-too-long nose. The goatee looked nice though.

A girlfriend in college had once told him that he was handsome. Personally, he couldn't see it. Maybe he wasn't ugly, but 'handsome' wasn't something he'd been built for.

"Morning Edgar," he smiled faintly at himself. "Quite a _mood_ I'm in this morning."

He started to turn away, but the shine of his glasses in the mirror made him pause, and Edgar glanced at the reflection from the corner of his eye. Something about his face from that angle sent his brain racing.

"Scri?" he whispered, not know what he'd said or even why he'd said it. Oh well. Carry on.

Mildly confused, the man went about his day no worse for its unusual start, save with a bit more bounce in his step. The agreeable mood lasted on until lunch, when he reached into the department freezer and found his lunch inexplicably not there.

"Who took my lunch?" he wondered aloud, feeling the happy disposition evaporate in seconds, replaced with his usual sense of resignation and unhappy acceptance.

"Wasn't me," answered a fat man at the nearby table, munching on a sandwich that looked _suspiciously_ like his own.

"Oh really." Edgar sighed. "That looks an awful lot like mine."

"'S not," the obese loser insisted.

"…Fine."

--

The remainder of Edgar's day went no better. His boss berated him for some miniscule reason that _apparently_ made a difference in the life of an unstable perfectionist; he was annoyed by a female coworker who made rude comments on his shirt ("What's _that_? Chinese for 'I'm stoooopid'?") _and_ smacked her gum.

He was cut off in traffic at least three times by people with stickers from two elections past on their bumpers, and screamed at by a hobo ("YOU CAN'T HAVE MY TOE!").

"Another day, another headache," Edgar sighed, pulling the door to his apartment closed behind him. The wonderful dream of the morning was forgotten in his exhaustion. Why was he _always_ exhausted? Was this what people called 'burn out'?

The brunette set his glasses down on the table and looked at his apartment through fuzzy vision. Too bad the whole world wasn't like this—soft around the edges, colors blended like one giant object with an impressionist paint job.

The specs were placed back on his nose and a bible was pulled from the bookshelf. Edgar flipped to a page at random, hoping for some sort of divine inspiration.

"'My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Why art thou so far from helping me, from words of my groaning?'" he read aloud, allowing his tension to ebb away, "'O my God, I cry by day, but thou dost not answer; and by night, but find no rest'…"

--

Edgar slept a fitful sleep, full of spinning lyrics and screaming children. He twisted in his sheets, wrapping covers around his legs and knocking pillows to the ground. With a start, the fevered man shot out of bed, clutching at his right wrist.

Inhale. Exhale_. Nothing but a dream. _Inhale_. _Exhale_. No power over you. _Inhale. Exhale_. It's not you. _Inhale_. It was never you. _Exhale_._

"You don't really believe that." A voice from his left stated. What—Who the hell was in his room?

"Who are _you_?" Edgar reached for his glasses. No glasses! No table either. "Where are my glasses?!"

The voice snorted. "Figures that you ask for your _spectacles_ before even trying to look around. They're in your pocket, my boy."

The strange form of address was the least of Edgar's worries at the moment, so he simply filed it under the growing 'Weirdness' file. He reached into his pocket (pocket? Wasn't he wearing pajamas?) and found, to his disbelief, glasses.

"How did you know?" the now fully awake man wondered, holding his glasses away from himself as if they might bite.

"Typical," the peculiar home-breaker groaned, "Why don't you put. Them. On. And then we'll see where the priority lies."

Hesitantly, Edgar slid his glasses onto his face, allowing the world of dark blurs to realign. He choked.

What he had believed to be his room was clearly not his room at all, but a pink forest under an amethyst sky, nighttime lit only by the alabaster moon. His bed was currently placed under a wide oak tree, little white dolls hanging from its branches like a flurry of lynched ghosts. A checkered marble floor faded in and out along the ground of the grassy clearing.

Beside him stood a man with shaggy brown hair, face partially concealed behind black eyeglasses over a just-too-long nose. The man shrugged his stripe-clad shoulders and looked expectantly at Edgar.

"What is this place?" he gasped, jumping out of his bed.

"You of all people should know." The opposite rolled his eyes.

"Well I don't!" Edgar cried, "Oh, god, this is insane! Who _are_ you?"

"Me? I'm hurt, Edgar, really. And after all this time together..." the strange man lifted his brow behind the dark-tinted glasses.

"What the hell does that mean?" the confused man rubbed his temples. "I don't know you, I don't know this place, and I certainly don't know why I'm here! I just woke up in the middle of this godforsaken _headtrip_."

The shaggy-haired man only laughed and turned away. "Interesting word choice, my boy."

"Hey, wait!" Edgar called after his grudging companion, "At least tell me your name!"

"Hmm. My name, before anything else? Really, I'm flattered." The man turned back to face him, hands on hips. "I suppose you should call me 'Scriabin'. I wouldn't have picked it myself, but it does have a certain style."

"Right. Scriabin. Look, I don't know why I'm here, and I'm guessing you do. Where—What do I... How do I get back to my _life_?"

"It all depends," Scriabin answered smugly.

"...Depends on what?"

"On how far down the Rabbit Hole," he pointed at Edgar, "You want to _go_."

The visitor began to fade, the finger aimed at the perplexed man dissolving into air. First the white stripes on his arms turned transparent, and then his whole body from the limbs in. Finally, Edgar was left with a pair of shimmering black glasses and a floating smirk.

"What was it he told Alice?" The disembodied voice pondered, "Oh yeah. It doesn't matter which way you go, my dear. We're _all_ mad down here."

And then there was nothing. Just one man, his goatee, and a pink forest full of striped trees.

"…But… where _am_ I?"

—--

**TBC**

Comments? Critique?


	2. Exploratoriam

_**Phantasmaphilia** - to love the creation of one's own mind_

**This is... um... hard to write, since I have so much else going on. The fact that not many people will read it puts a damper on things. But I perservere! Because inspiration is like a creepy-crawly you accedentally swallowed, trying to claw its way out of your stomach. Lovely, yes?**

**-- **

I can't explain just how I feel,

thoughts of my

_Premature Burial_,

In this sublime box, here I lie,

in the hopes I'll be ...

Buried Alive

-by _Creature Feature_-

Edgar had wandered through the forest for a good ten minutes before his sensibility broke down and he tumbled to the ground.

It was just too much for him. All he'd ever asked for was a normal, happy life. But no. By daylight he was harassed and micromanaged, doing a job he'd hated for years now (what good did his _filing_ do the world?). By night, he was tortured with dreams of impossible places, like _Where the Wild Things Are_ meets _Alice in Wonderland_.

The tired man curled into a ball on the forest floor, vaguely aware of a shuffling off to his right. It really was a pretty place, for all its _wrong_ness.

"Are you lost, sir?" someone on his left asked in a high voice, "I say, are you lost?"

Wearily, Edgar lifted his head to see a strange fuzzy creature crouched beside him. His head flopped back down.

"'Lost' is too small of a word," he bemoaned in a muffled voice. "Nothing ever goes right for me."

The fuzzy thing wiggled its long ears. "Nothing? Nothing at all?"

"No, nothing. My boss hates me, I'm a walking suicide case, and my friends are all insurance salesmen, to paraphrase one stupid country song." The human pushed up onto his elbows and looked at the white fur ball.

"Hmmm. Well, you have a job, yes?"

"Uh… yeah. But I hate it."

"And you have a house."

"…An old one."

"And now you've found me."

Edgar didn't answer. The strange company had a point—there _were_ some things he had going for himself. But over the slew of negatives, the little smear of positive wasn't worth much.

"So, who are you, sir?" the animal asked, sitting back on its haunches.

"My name is Edgar. Edgar Vargas." He rolled onto his back and offered a hand, "And you?"

The rabbit-creature chuckled. "Oh, I don't have a name. Or rather I do, but it wouldn't mean anything to you. It's all one word, you know. There's only one dragon."

The man felt like his head would explode. Everything was a riddle on riddles here, and now his only help was talking about _dragons_ of all things. Did no one speak clearly around this… _place?_ First it was Scriabin, and…

"Um… Mr. … what should I call you?" It was pretty hard to start a question without a name.

"How about Higgles? It sounds so cheery!" the little creature's beady black eyes lit up.

"_Right_. Well, Mr. Higgles, do you by any chance know a man named Scriabin?" Edgar sat up properly, in the hopes of getting things figured out.

"Hmmm… Scriabin? No, but what a funny name it is. It sounds rather musical, you know? But if it helps, most people go _that_ way, so maybe you'll find him there?" Higgles pointed at a path along the forest floor that Edgar would have _sworn_ wasn't there before.

"Why aren't _you_ that way?" the man stood and brushed himself off.

"Oh, I'll be that way in a bit. For now, I'm on a bit of a quest. Everyone has to have a quest," Higgles said proudly, "What's your quest, Eddy?"

Eddy? "I don't have one, really. I'm just sort of… living. Right now I'm trying to get home."

The furry being looked at him with pity. "Every man's got to have a quest," it repeated, and hopped away.

For a moment, it was enough to contemplate that parting response. What did Higgles mean by 'quest'? Was that like a calling? Or a dream? Edgar had one of _those_.

Since he was young, the man had dreamed of making the world a better place, of turning the downward spiral of humanity into an escalator of hope. Late nights had been spent, dreaming of ways to save humanity.

Yes, humans were… flawed, but they could be saved! Mankind was worth it—Jesus had thought so, and so did Edgar.

As he wandered down the checkerboard path, winding between striped trees, the human found himself wondering when he'd given up on that. He'd had plans! Where did they go? When had he realized he couldn't make a difference? Maybe it was the same day he'd realized just how screwed up the planet was.

How could one man redeem that? How could a hundred men?

Absorbed in his growing depression, he slammed face-first into the trunk of a tree.

"JUDAS EFFING CHRIST!" he screeched, clutching at his long, but no longer straight, nose.

"Lovely language, there," snickered a voice that was like a B movie-villain crossed with his own.

Scriabin.

"Oh my god, I think it's broken!" Edgar cried, covering his face with a hand.

Scriabin stretched out on a limb overhead. "Relax, it's not broken."

"…It's not?" the injured man wondered, thinking that, well, Scriabin would know better than him. Nothing about this place made sense. What did he know?

"Not anymore," the mysterious man clarified, pointing lazily at his opposite's—now healed—nose.

Edgar tentatively touched his face and felt nothing out of the ordinary at all. No pain, no swelling, no bend…

"How did you _do_ that?" he demanded, stepping back for a better look at his companion.

"I didn't do anything. That was you." Scriabin rolled his eyes over those tinted glasses.

"But… but it wasn't! I can't do that kind of thing… I don't _have_ superpowers, or whatever the hell did that!" Edgar threw his hands into the air.

"It was, you can, and you do," the stranger pointed out, jumping from his branch. "Or more specifically, _everyone_ does."

"No, no, that can't be right. Otherwise, there wouldn't be hospitals. Or wars, or… orphans."

Scriabin sent him another annoyed look. "You're not getting it. It's all in your head."

"God almighty, would you stick with one side of the argument, please?" The puzzled man groaned and rubbed his temples. "That's what I'm saying, I mean. It had to be you!"

"Edgar, sometimes I underestimate just how _jammed_ you are in those box-shaped paradigms of yours. Look, I'll spell it out _really_ slowly. You believed me, right?"

"Right. Because I figured you'd know better than me, since I'm… on your turf."

"And if you _really_ believe me, down to the last cell in your body, then that makes me right," Scriabin finished. "It's right because you _make_ it right. Of course, I'm always right by nature of being _me_, but you get the idea."

"You've... got to be kidding. I don't have any _control_ over… those things!" Edgar exclaimed, feeling frustrated enough to cry.

"And there in lies the problem," his antagonist nodded, "You don't _think_ you have any control. It's like that old proverb. 'Whether you think you _can_ or you think you _can't_, you're right'."

The two men stared at each other for a long minute, one wondering if they were both insane, and the other wondering just how long this was going to take.

"Scriabin," the first man started, "Why do you look so much like me?" it was hard to tell how much alike they were, with those black glasses covering his eyes, but…

"Pssh. Who said I look like you? Maybe you look like me?" Apparently, the non-sequitor had thrown the second man out of his rhythm. He seemed… irked.

"Maybe so… but somehow, I don't think that's the case. Scriabin, what _are_ you?"

His doppelganger looked him over quite seriously. "I think you'll have to figure that out for yourself. Because, honestly? My boy, I have no idea."

It was becoming increasingly clear that Scriabin loved dramatic exits. Clear because with a smirk, he turned on his heel and strode into the shadows of forest like a ghost, singing in an eerie voice.

"Oh, we all have a face that we hide away forever, and we take them out and show ourselves when everyone has gone…" he sang, disappearing from view. "…They're the faces of the stranger, but we _love_ to try them on…"

—

Edgar was left alone, as the unsettlingly familiar tune faded into the distance. Resigning himself to another half hour of walking, the tired man started up his trek.

There was something about Scriabin that threw him off. Without a reason, the strange man brought up feelings of distrust, hatred, affection and reliance… all jumbled up together in an impossible mixture. And there really _was_ no reason—He'd never seen that… whatever-he-was before in his _life_!

And on that note, how did he know Edgar's name? Why did he act as if he _knew_ Edgar? He pondered these questions with no answers, turning them over and over in his head like a shaken margarita as the forest thinned ahead of him.

Wait. The forest wasn't just thinning, it was flat out disappearing. Edgar reached a hand out in front of himself to test the fading world, and hit a tree.

Oh, so it was just fog. It was a relief, but also disappointing, in a way.

He wandered for a while by touch, until he felt (or at least assumed) that the trees were in fact thinning after all. He felt a sentence form in the corners of his mind, completely unbidden.

'So maybe I'm digging my own grave, but I'll bury your sins with me.'

Confused, he wondered where exactly that thought had come from. It felt, like everything in this topsy-turvy world, both infinitely familiar, and utterly new. It was in his head, but he hadn't thought it… He didn't _remember_ thinking it…

That was when he ran headfirst into something for the second time in less than an hour. Luckily, this was not a tree. In fact…

"Well aren't you going to apologize?" demanded the person he'd apparently knocked over.

"Oh, I'm sorry!" Edgar winced, trying to see whoever he'd run into, "I… it's hard to see with this fog…"

"What are you talking about? It's a lovely, sunny day and the sun is shining. What do you mean, 'fog'?" harrumphed the injured party.

"I mean it's foggy here. And dark. Um… sir…" What was a polite way to say 'what world do _you_ live in'?

"Are you touched in the head?" the stranger demanded curiously.

Okay, so maybe politeness wasn't a key concern here.

"No—I don't think… though I'm starting to wonder…" Edgar sighed.

"Seriously, what sort of person would want to live in a foggy world?" demanded the indignant man.

"I don't think _wanting_ has anything to do with it." The eternally confused man pointed out. It was odd to talk to someone you couldn't see.

"Bull," the stranger snorted, "Wanting 's got everything to do with it. Don't pull that victim crap on me."

"Oh," Edgar groaned. "Not you too! Look, I already told Scriabin: I don't have any control over things!"

"Who's Scriabin? _I_ don't know 'im. All I'm saying is, what you got in your _head_ is what you see out _here_. It's all the same thing. Y'know?"

"I hate to keep repeating myself," the frustrated man began, "But I really don't _have_ that kind of power. The world is the way it is—it's the one thing science and religion both agree on. Is everyone around here _nuts_?"

The stranger muttered something about stubborn donkeys and grabbed Edgar's hand. "Let me show you what I mean."

And like a flash of lightening, the fog was gone. Actually, the forest was gone too. In its place was a rolling field of striped grass, purples and pinks underfoot. Off in the distance was what looked like a castle, azure and shiny in the cheerful sunlight.

"…How…?"

"It's in your head now, so you see it. And I have to say, it took some effort to plant that idea. You _are_ a inflexible one, aren't you?"

Edgar looked at his companion. Average human, but dressed in a positively ridiculous renaissance costume, complete with tights.

"…Um… This is… weren't we in a forest?" Edgar felt a break down coming on.

"Maybe _you_ were. I wasn't," the oddly dressed man answered. He checked his watch (what was he doing with a watch? Hadn't they gone back in time or something?) and jumped.

"Holy muffins! Did you know it was this late? And I still have to run home and grab my cookie platter!" He started off at a jog, leaving Edgar in the dust. "I'll see you at the thingy!"

The lone man stood gaping for a long minute, turning their conversation over in his head. "Why does no one ever give me a straight answer?"

—--

**TBC**

Comments? Critique?


	3. City of Blood

_**Phantasmaphilia** - to love the creation of one's own mind_

**Ah, so prepare to be amazed, my friends. If there's something you don't get, please point it out--we're all here to learn. **

**-- **

Tell me how I got this far-

Just tell me why you're here and who you are

'Cause every time I look

you're never there

And every time I sleep

you're always there

-_Everywhere,_ Michelle Branch-

With little else to do, Edgar made his winding way to the castle in the distance. He could only hope that _this_ was where everyone was heading—and thus, Scriabin.

More than anything else, the wanderer was coming to regard Scriabin as his ultimate goal. That mystery felt like the key to his whole ordeal; find Scriabin (and get him to talk coherently), and you find the way out. Maybe that was what Higgles had meant?

And what was with the people around here? Why did everyone talk in riddles? It felt like they were speaking a language that sounded like his own, but completely different. Like a code that he couldn't cipher. Why did they keep _insisting_ that he had some sort of spooky magic power? It was insane.

Edgar knew, he KNEW, that he was positively the most regular, ordinary person he knew. The only thing that was at _all_ interesting about him was the way nothing at all seemed to go right. And the way he somehow attracted all the jerks in the universe—but he'd come to expect those things.

"And that's exactly the problem," said someone beside him. Oh no, here we go again.

"Scriabin," not a question. "Don't tell me you're reading my _mind_ too."

The proverbial 'evil twin' snorted. "Nothing so theatrical. I just know you… and I do have a lot of experience with your thoughts."

"That's just creepy," Edgar deadpanned. "How can you _possibly_ have practice with that?"

He looked the man over as they walked, shaggy brown hair to striped shirt to combat boots. It occurred to him that they were like inverted copies of each other, black where there should be white, long where there should be short. And his eyes were still impossible to see, even in the daylight.

"Oh, I think that would be too easy. I'll tell you this though," the strange copy slid in front of Edgar and simply walked backwards without missing a beat, "In another place, in another time, I'd be more than just figuratively _in your head_."

"…And I suppose you won't tell me more than that?" asked the resigned man, glancing down at his tennis shoes. It was funny, he didn't remember putting these clothes on… Logically, he should be in pajamas.

"Correct! You know, I think I like you better this way. It's like those pop-psychologist quacks say, 'Every happy couple needs time apart'. Don't you think so, my boy?"

It occurred to Edgar that if he just sped up his pace a bit, he could grind this arrogant jerk into the dust. What a lovely thought. Still, it might be better to be harassed continually than walk this getting-longer-by-the-minute path _alone_…

"Do you know what the problem with this whole situation is?" the annoyed man muttered. "It's that you never stick around long enough for me to get a decent answer."

"Oh? And what sort of questions would you have me answer? I doubt they'd be anything new. Why are you here? Or, why does everything happen to you?" Scriabin mocked, arms thrown out, "Why is the world full of ignorant jerks? Why does God never answer you? Are you a bad person? Is that blond man at the mini-mart single?"

"Hey!" Edgar yelped, "That was an entirely innocent question! I didn't mean it that way."

They looked at each other for a silent moment, the defendant's face reddening like a football player's midterm paper. Which is to say, quite red.

"It's always back to the same argument," Scriabin sighed and fell back into pace beside Edgar, "And it's not top of the list for today, so I'll let it go. You have _no_ idea how lucky you are. I can be quite the nag."

"Oh, I don't doubt it," his companion replied darkly. "So who are you, really? You _look_ like me, but you're nothing like me. A nag, a know-it-all, arrogant…"

"I'm also a pessimist." The double interrupted with the pleased air of someone who's just delivered a punch line. "But as interesting as I am, we're here because of _you._ God knows, _I'd_ never have enough problems to land myself here."

"But where is 'here'?" Edgar moaned, feeling that the conversation was going in circles.

"Ooo, now that's an interesting question, with an equally interesting answer. And the best part is, you won't figure it out till later, because heaven forbid Edgar Vargas have a few screws loose. So no, before you ask, I won't tell you."

"I see…" he looked up at the castle, which had somehow ended up only a hundred or so yards ahead of them. "Wasn't that further away a minute ago?"

There was no response.

Edgar turned his head to ask Scriabin again, but he was nowhere in sight. Once more, the doppelganger had disappearing into literally thin air. Figures. Time to focus on the present situation.

It was a strange castle, actually, now that he looked at it. The walls were a peculiar sort of metallic blue that shone impossibly red in the sunlight, the seamless barrier rising up and curving inwards. Really, the utter strangeness should be no surprise by now, but…

_The walls glow blue… So deep and perfect a blue, that when the light hits them, they shine crimson._

"What was that? Who said that?" Edgar demanded into the empty field. Someone—some_thin_g had said that. Or maybe they didn't. All he knew was, he'd heard it.

_So beautiful, and still so cruel. There is no god here, there is no kindness…_

Shaking, the man realized that these solemn words were, in fact, _not_ spoken aloud. It was a narration in his head—in his own voice, actually, but certainly not his thoughts.

_I've never seen these things. Why should I believe in them?_

He reached out a hand, inexplicably drawn to this looming fortress like iron to a magnet, and pushed at the great grey door. Without a sound, they swung inwards on invisible hinges, allowing him a view of a dusty coble-stone street enclosed by huge, plain stone buildings. It reeked of silence.

_Maybe they exist somewhere else, but as much as I want to believe…I just can't. There were once others, I think, but perhaps I'm wrong._

He could see, over the tops of those terribly empty houses, strange curved stones pierced the sky, like claws of an awful beast. They glittered painfully in the brightness, colors shifting with a dark iridescence, even though the sky was now gray like rain clouds. Odd.

_Here, my memory slides through the cracks, through my fingers, like the blood thrown on these walls._

Edgar jumped as he noticed that there was indeed blood splattered on the city walls… where had it come from? And there! On the horizon! A palace made of the same impossible blue stone flickered in and out of existence. It almost matched the beat of his heart… becoming; it seemed more solid as confusion welled inside his chest.

_Sadness is an undertone… mixed with every brick, the life-blood of this dead city.  
I rarely feel it now._

Was it his imagination, or did wild jeering laughter echo through the street? Edgar could feel in his very soul that this place was empty. Completely lifeless, except for him—and it made him wonder if… maybe… he wasn't just as dead as the city?

_This undeniably bitter world of blood and tears is mine_

He walked through maze-like paths, looping back on themselves and leading nowhere. It occurred to him that there were no doors. There was a _beat, beat, beat_ underfoot, throbbing through the abandoned cobblestone paths_._

_I loathe it! No other city is as this… But here is the only land I've ever lived in, so how would I know? Maybe there _are_ no living cities… maybe it is the fate of every kingdom to die…__._

As he drew further into the city, Edgar felt as strange sensation bubbling in his chest. This… place… so familiar… so alien… He knew it with every fiber of his body, and yet he'd never seen it before. It was like a dream, where nothing makes sense, but on a fundamental level… you understand it perfectly.

_Maybe there's a greater pattern, maybe looking down from the heavens, like God would were he real, could fix things… Or maybe it would just be circles._

This city was HIS.

_I hate this place! And still…_

Or maybe, _he_ was the _city_.

_…It'__s hard to hate your own heart, no matter how many times it betrays you_

And faster than lightening itself, Edgar Vargas stood before the great citadel, it's walls glowing sapphire and shimmering rouge in the non-existent light.

_Est nostram fatam esse miserum _

The man fell to his knees, shaking with suppressed sobs. The memories came in flashes, shrieking children and two adults screaming from pain or fear, he didn't know.

There was blood, so much blood… on him, on the floor, the walls… the man… Metal slashing through the air, cruel rents cut through living flesh… Two murderers… two separate horrors...

Here, in this ghost town, the wretched souls of his life—past, present, possible futures—flickered in and out of his vision, drenching him in someone else's blood and ripping him to pieces and God, he could _feel_ it… two murders dying through him simultaneously but, he knew, he'd only lived through _one_…

The man and woman fell like marionettes with cut strings as his body was ripped to shreds and why was he feeling this he wasn't supposed to remember this _he'd never lived this_!

Then, through the haze of terror, Edgar felt two arms wrap around his convulsing body and lift him off the ground. Whoever was holding him took two long steps backwards and turned, striding off the way he'd come in.

From the fist step away from that place, Edgar felt his voiceless horror ease. The screams and the stench of blood faded into the distance. His rescuer held him close to the chest, moving them both with a graceful speed past the sapphire walls and out into the open air beyond them. It was strange, but Edgar thought that he'd never in his life felt so safe as he did now, wrapped in a stranger's arms.

The world was fuzzy—he'd dropped his glasses. He desperately wanted to stay in this secure state; there was something about whoever was holding him that felt so… protective. But despite his own wishes, Edgar looked up.

He knew that face, blurred as it was.

"S…Scriabin?" he breathed, utterly confused. "You… saved me?"

His savior stopped for a moment. It was hard to tell, but he seemed to be wondering whether to answer. "I did no such thing," He finally replied.

"But… I'm not… you… brought me out?" Edgar was confused, obviously. That on top of trauma did not make for astounding coherancy.

With a sigh, Scriabin sat—and still didn't loosen his arms. "Don't go thinking I'm the good guy, it'll just make things harder. I wasn't expecting you to go _in_, you've never been the sort to go soul-searching before. You aren't ready for that…. That mistake's been made before, forcing you to face things you aren't ready to face…"

Edgar nodded slowly, not sure what he was talking about, but listening none-the-less.

"…It just drives you further away. I thought, this time, we'd do things your way. Start clean, put some space between us… and then you go do something idiotic like that!" Scriabin's grip tightened. "What idiot walks straight into the heart of their own misery without a second of preparation? I didn't realize you needed me _that_ much."

"Hey!" despite not knowing exactly what he'd done, the baffled man felt a need to defend himself. "How was I supposed to know where I was walking? I've never been there before!"

"Dear lord, Edgar. Are you really _that_ unaware? Couldn't you _feel_ the misery in that place?"

"Well, yeah, but it didn't feel any different from… I didn't think it mean anything."

"My dear, when things start to feel familiar, that's a good cue to throw up a guard. Have you _never_ done this before?"

"Never done WHAT? If you're going to ask me a question, can you do it with a little less sarcasm!"

The dark twin relaxed suddenly, shifting into an easy position. Maybe he was leaning on something? "Now that's more like it. I dare say you're more like yourself when you argue."

Edgar really wanted his glasses. The sky didn't look blue, so he was probably in another forest of some sort… but it was so hard to tell! At least Scriabin was close enough to mostly see.

"What are you talking about?" the irritated rescue-ee demanded, "I never argue with anyone! You're the first person I've yelled at in years!"

"And that felt good, didn't it? You've been _wanting_ to throw a fit for a while now, but you never had a good excuse—and there always has to be an excuse with you. God forbid you just feel some natural emotion like any other human."

"I do too feel emotions!" Edgar defended, "I just keep them in check. What kind of world would it be if we all just screamed whenever we felt like it?"

"A better one, I imagine."

_A better one, my dear._

**TBC**


	4. Lulliby Creek

_**Phantasmaphilia** - to love the creation of one's own mind_

**And here we have... things. I dunno, don't ask me. I'm just writing this stuff. Lullaby is a product of my own imagination, but she has her own poem if you're interested (or want a better explanation).**

**-- **

Yet come to me in dreams,

that I might live my very life again

though cold in Death...

Come back to me in dreams, that I may give

pulse for pulse, breath for breath...

-_Come to me, My Love_-

All things considered, Edgar felt they had reached an impasse. They sat in silence for a time, listening to the wind. Being held like this should have been awkward, and it was to a degree, but mostly it was just … there were really no words for it.

'Satisfied'?

Edgar wondered how long it had been since he was last like this—holding someone simply because he wanted to. It had never been such a contented state with any of his past girlfriends, few though they were.

It was alien. It was uncomfortably comforting. It was... just like Scriabin.

"Do you know where my glasses are?" he finally asked, hating to break the silence, but beginning to feel more self-conscious as the moments passed by.

Scriabin sighed, loosening his arms. "No, but I'd be willing to bet you left them in the City of Blood. Things always end up there, one day. You'll end up there too, but not yet. Usually, it's a kind of crossroad –left or right, right or wrong, suicide or perseverance."

"Do you... live here?" Edgar wondered, gesturing randomly into the air. It was really the only explanation for how much he knew. _If _he knew. Maybe he was just making up spooky mumbo-jumbo as he went. There _was_ something about him that whispered 'liar'.

"Not exactly. It depends on what you mean by 'here'. Like, for instance, I do _not_ live under this tree."

Ah, so they were under a tree after all.

"On the other hand, I don't have a house either, if that's what you meant."

"Then where do you..." okay, he'd already asked that. "...sleep?"

Laughter. "I don't _sleep_, My dear. I wouldn't waste precious moments of life on dreams–-but then, that's a rather ironic thing to say, isn't it?"

"Why?"

"Because all of life is someone else's dream. Especially for me. Haven't you ever wondered what happens to the shadowy characters that flit in and out of your dreamscape? They don't just stop existing when you look away–No, when you do, they change."

"Why would they change?" Wait, was he actually _buying _this?

"Have you ever heard of the 'observer effect'? No, don't say anything, I know the answer. The idea is that any object--man, woman, or weasel—is influenced by whoever happens to be looking at them. When they look away, there's a potential for change that isn't solidified until someone else glances their way."

Edgar looked up at his... friend? Were they friends? "Where do you _get _this stuff from?"

"It's all science, my boy. A particle can exist in an infinite number of places at once. So can you, Edgar Vargas, but we'll get into that eventually. There's potential for every state of existence in the universe, and it takes an expectation or a belief to bring one up over the others."

"Scriabin, you do realize that, at least for me, someone is _always_ watching. I don't mean to get religious on you..."

"Oh my. Edgar Vargas, passive doormat, is about to give _me_ a lecture about God almighty. This is new! What a role reversal. So tell me, would you like to know who God _really_ is, or would you rather take the less traumatic road, and see if I can convince you without deconstructing your world to sobbing pieces?" All of this was offered with a brightly smiling voice.

"Um... Would… Could you actually do that?" Edgar asked with tinges of fear in his voice. He'd always considered his faith fairly unshakable, but there was something knife sharp in Scriabin's tone...

"My dear, I've done it before and I'll do it again. But we're getting along much better than I anticipated, so I'd really rather not. If it's all the same to you."

"…Let's go with that."

Scriabin looked up at what Edgar assumed to be a forest canopy. It was getting darker, and he suspected that by the time his mysterious companion decided to fade spookily into the night, it would indeed be late. There was a portion of his brain still trying to reason out the random changes from daylight to night… But for the most part, he'd given up on that.

"Anyways, let's assume for a second that God is out of the equation. Lets say, he exists on a plane of being where his attention changes nothing on Earth. That shouldn't be too hard for you to imagine." The strange man said this as if he knew _exactly_ what Edgar thought of his God (and didn't buy it at all). "If we rule him out, then we're back to the original question."

Edgar took the bait. "What question is that?"

"Does the light even _exist_ when the refrigerator door is shut?"

That seemed to be enough for the moment, because Scriabin made no sign of continuing. They sat like that, one resting in the other's arms, for what felt like eternity as the question was turned over and over silently. Lightly, almost like the wind between branches of a tree, something brushed his shoulder in a tender motion

Startled by the contact _(when was the last time someone had…?),_ he glanced back to ask Scriabin why he'd done that, only to find himself alone—resting between the roots of an oak.

…Alone, and for the first time in a long time, wishing that he weren't.

--

Near blindness was a severe disadvantage, but it was that or go back to the City of Blood–-and Edgar certainly did not plan on doing _that _anytime soon.

So instead, he stumbled through the forest in an irritated huff, cursing Scriabin's lack of helpfulness all the while. Roots grabbed at his sneakers with gnarled grips, trying to bring him down like a felled tree. Every step brought a thicker curtain of branches above his head, tearing at his face and hair.

_Maybe they want my glasses?_ He wondered inanely, ripping brambles from around his pant leg.

He'd grown up a city kid in a suburban neighborhood. The closest thing he'd had to _wilderness _was a creek that ran behind the houses down the hill. Oh, fate was cruel.

"And to think I ever wanted to go _hiking,_" he muttered with disgust. Was it just him, or was the ground beginning to slant downwards?

In fact, it was. Soon it became so steep that it sent him tumbling into the base of a tree. He righted himself with a groan of self-pity and attempted to look around.

Oddly enough, things looked clearer that they had a few minutes ago. His vision was just sharp enough that he could make out a small river only a few feet away, and a fuzzy impression of the opposite bank.

The sky above him, which could be seen now through the empty space above the creek, was the deep blue that only comes on full-moon nights. He supposed that if he had his glasses, he would even seen his own shadow by its light. It flowed like liquid between the thin canopy overhead, and the chilling wind seemed to pass right through him.

There! Across the shore, what was that?

It was, he assumed, human of some sort, like a shadow painted in white. It drew nearer with an air of the unavoidable, a faint tint of gold growing stronger. Across the river it walked, paying no heed to the laws of nature, until it was but a few steps away from him.

"Who are you?" Edgar wondered aloud, eyes wide.

She, for indeed it was female, said nothing, only brushed back her wheat colored hair and regarded him passively.

Her eyes were sad and ageless; they bored into him as she drew closer. Silent as the night, the girl reached out and brushed his cheek with one wet hand. Her skin was like pure electricity, striking through him like lightening.

With the jolt came a stream of images, undulating through his consciousness in an overpowering wave that brought tears to his eyes. He was assailed by flashes of a young red headed girl lying on the ground with her head twisted in an unnatural position, images of a shrieking teenager striking him across the face, of drowning and of death.

Each vision was undeniably real through her eyes: he felt the terror of watching someone die and being unable to help, felt the slap like it was his own skin, watched helplessly as the water below rushed up to meet him, knew that he was dying... dying...

Reality slammed back into him. He was in his own body once more, and the girl regarded him sadly. Her memories... they felt so familiar, like an echo in the corners of his own mind.

Glancing up at the moon, she parted her lips to speak. "This... I tell you freely. I see things, things no human should see. I see you, but I see you twice--no, three times. Alive, dead, alive again. You live now, here, though perhaps you shouldn't. Most certainly, you should not be alive then. And yet you do and did... and you love."

She sighed and looked at him once more, her eyes almost hypnotic. Holding out a hand, she took a step towards him.

"Ah, but the Death is a strange one," she continued, "Fearless, tragic, the turning point in another man's life. Who is to say if it was for the better? And there is another... he who walks in shadows... tied to you by fate. Mark my words, Edgar Vargas; there is no denying fate. He will find you--or perhaps he already has."

It was too much for the man, and he stumbled back. Every word rang like the death toll of a God, resonating inside of him until he wished he could tear open his chest and release it. Too much, too much.

"Edgar," she said softly, stepping forward again, "You love deeply, as few men ever do. When all else fails, that will be your strength. Never deny that, Edgar Vargas. No matter what shape it comes in, never deny the image of your heart."

And then she was gone. There was no smoke, no fade to black, she simply... existed no more.

But his ears, tuned as they were to the silence, caught a lingering note. It glided on the wind like a feather, haunting and inhumanly alone. It was that note which brought back his own memories, sifted from the bottom of that damnable pile: things best forgotten, things that could not be dealt with.

A girl, one he knew... once upon a time. Just another person in a sea of humans who could not be helped. How can you save the world when you can't even save yourself?

"Lullaby," he whispered, gazing down at the river with untouched awe, "Lullaby Creek."

_The ghost of a girl, named Lullaby Creek_

**TBC**


	5. A Mad Tea Party

_**Phantasmaphilia** - to love the creation of one's own mind_

**So... I've been on hiatus for the last couple months. I'm back, but this is not going to be a regular update. It's a side fic. End story. But I do like writing this version of Edgar, and I've missed it.**

**-- **

You're in time for the show,

You're the one that I need,

I'm the one that you loath

My Chemical Romance -_The Sharpest lives_

Somewhere far away from Lullaby Creek, a shaggy-haired man in combat boots was whistling a half familiar tune, whittling away at a chunk of wood.

The whistling lapsed into words and he flipped the carving over, judging the proportions. "I don't know about life after this, God knows I've never been a spiritual man…"

His knife flashed into action, cutting swaths in the block as it gradually took the shape of a human, arms outstretched. Scriabin eyed its face critically. Goatee, mid-length hair, eyes obscured by glasses… something was missing.

"We all end in the ocean…" he sang on, "We all start in the stream—we're all carried along… by the river of dreams…."

With all the care of a surgeon, he dug the end of his knife into the carving's face, once under each eye.

"In the middle of the night…" Scriabin trailed off, staring at the little person in his hands. Without color, without all the spark of a true human, he couldn't for the life of him tell whom it was that he had created.

"Too much a like," he muttered. "Too different."

Some sort of bird-lizard hybrid flew past him, screeching in a voice that sounded more human that he was comfortable with. Edgar, he reflected, was a decidedly strange man. Whether he admitted it or not.

There was something satisfying about whittling, he'd found. The power a person felt when they created was even stronger than when they destroyed. Any fool can burn a book… it takes a much stronger person to write it in the first place.

He'd known that all along, of course.

Carefully, Scriabin laid the character on the ground next to a collection of other characters: a thin man with split bangs, a boy in a ridiculously floppy hat, and another boy with one very wide eye and horns. He would make more, soon, but for now, that was enough.

"It's not my world…" he smirked, "but that doesn't mean I can't fix it."

--

Edgar walked. It seemed like he'd been walking for days, but who could measure time in a place like this?

He'd been through the river and across some sort of day-and-night division. Behind him, everything was shadowy and nocturnal. Ahead of him, it was a bight, sunny day with strange umbrella creatures chirping away. It was a sign of how long he'd been there, that he didn't even blink at the flying parasols.

Somewhere up ahead was a road, a paved street with no trees to run into or brambles to claw at his legs. He just knew it. And if he found people, he would find a road.

In truth, it was the other way around—Edgar found the road first, and then the people.

"What?" the man asked aloud, noticing a sound drifting his way, "Music?"

It was never a good sign when you started to talk to yourself.

So with great care to stay quiet—who knew what kind of dangerous people lived around here—Edgar slipped down the road and came to a gate. The music seemed to bounce over the stone wall, and he half expected to see a rubber-hose style army of notes come dancing over it with top hats and canes.

It would not have surprised him.

"Hello?" he called, "Is anyone there?"

An answer came from somewhere within the yard, "NO! Go away, peon!"

Another voice cut in. "Pepito, that's not very nice. We should invite him in."

"But amigo, he could be a zombie or a werewolf or a door-to-door salesman!"

"_Squee_… but monsters don't knock. And salesmen are more polite than that. They use it to lure you into a false sense of security!"

"Fine. But he's not getting one of _my_ chairs."

The gate creaked open and Edgar shuffled in, ready to bolt at the first loud noise. Maybe this hadn't been such a good idea…

Wow. The same stone wall enclosed the whole yard, but its inside was painted a blinding canary yellow. There was a riot of florescent green and pink and orange in every planter, the grass a freakish glowing teal color. Edgar could feel his eyes beginning to water.

"Like the colors?" asked the second voice, almost… Cute. "I picked 'em out myself. Bright colors keep out zombie Jesus—that's why everyone paints Easter eggs those ugly colors."

"I told him that one," the first voice whispered conspiratorially.

The startled man turned sharply and came face to face with his hosts. Two young boys, preteens, stood before him—one had the most ridiculous green hat on, twice the size of his head. The other was leering in a frankly disturbing manner with his mismatched eyes, one green and the other bright red. He had ears too. Long, rabbit-looking things.

And horns. Hm. Edgar's vision was clearing up.

Hat-boy smiled happily. "Hi there! I'm—"

"Squee," the horned child finished, "And I'm Pepito. Who are you?"

"Me?" The older man remembered his talk with Mr. Higgles, "You can call me Edgar. Apparently, name's not a defining factor in a person. Pleased to meet you."

"Oh, that's insightful!" Squee reached up and shook his hand. "And my name isn't really Squee, you know. It's Todd."

"Yes, _well_, it's been lovely getting to know you, but we have a tea party to attend, SO…" Pepito twitched his upstanding ears and made to drag his companion back to the enormous buffet table behind them.

"Tea party?" Edgar asked, noticing the abnormally large teapots and cups scattered all across the table. How many place settings _were_ there? Surely they couldn't need that many…

"Yes. Tea party. You wanna make something of it?" demanded the creepy child, effectively halting any remarks about boys and tea parties.

"No, no," Edgar answered hastily, "But would you mind if I joined you for a second? I'm kind of tired and I could use some tea…"

The two boys looked at each other. Squee fiddled with his hat and Pepito stared at him.

"Mr. Edgar, you have to understand… this table's only set for two. Shmee has to sleep in a teapot!"

"But… there's so many chairs! You really don't have to give me any tea; I just need to sit down. I feel like I'm going to pass out."

"Well…" the smaller boy glanced at his friend nervously, "It can't hurt. You can take one of my chairs." And the boy led him to a seat at the table's end.

"This seems awfully familiar…" Edgar muttered to himself, watching the kids scramble for their chairs. More loudly, he said, "So what's the occasion? For the party, I mean."

"Oh," the long eared boy dropped his frown for a moment, "Squee composed a poem! I haven't even heard it yet, but it's his best ever. Go on and read it, amigo."

"Alright." Todd looked slightly embarrassed by the praise. "Take Shmee out so he can listen too."

Obediently, Pepito popped the lid off of a particularly large pot and reached in. Out came a tattered teddy bear, looking with all its stitches like a fuzzy Frankenstein's monster.

"Ac-hem. Ode to an Evil Little Town, in honor of creepy things that actually exist, dedicated to Pepito Son-of-Satan."

Pepito beamed.

"I met the Devil in Glastonbury,  
in a car-lot near the park,  
his cane tapped along the sidewalk  
and the bright-lit day felt dark.

I met the devil in Glastonbury  
eyes all white as bone-  
eerily blind, but I know that he saw-  
and a gut-twisting evil he shone

I met the devil in Glastonbury  
he nearly brushed my shoulder  
with sightless eyes he grinned at me  
and the afternoon felt colder."

Oh. That was actually pretty good. Edgar had been expecting something more… elementary.

"Awesome stuff, Squee," applauded Pepito. "My turn. Let me see if I can follow that one…"

Edgar took the quiet moment to look around more carefully, viewing the day-glow creeper vines and moving trees. It was one weird garden, but he was happy to see the images getting sharper.

"I've got it! 'Anti-Christ', dedicated to Squee and my soulless hoards of the damned:

The voice is speaking, but it's not mine,  
The face is laughing, but I am mute.  
Salvation in the hateful words, Salvation in the bones!  
This decaying world is in my hands, and I am all alone.  
The world is burning, But I am cold  
The sun is turning, But I am dark  
Sliding fast and losing hold, y_ou_ made me what I am.  
A beast to wander the empty ruins, You'll never understand.  
The world is created, but I can destroy  
You tell me I'm hated, but I can still love.  
So bring me all your thoughtless frozen, Salvation in the bones!  
And in a dark and ruined world, something glitters… gold.  
(I can work with this)"

The creepy boy sat back smugly, shooting Edgar a look that said, "I dare you to do better."

"That's good Pepi! And _way_ less disturbing that 'An Ode to Cannibalism'." The boy in the hat looked like he was suffering vicious flashbacks. "Um. Anyways…"

"So what have YOU got?" Pepito turned to Edgar and glared.

The man shifted uneasily in his chair. "I'm really not much of a poet."

"But you used to be," stated Todd. "Otherwise we wouldn't be here."

"Not in a long time. There are more important things in my life than stanzas and gothic imagery."

Though how the Squee-child knew that much about him was a mystery. As a teen, he'd had a seemingly bottomless well of creativity, despite his rather unhappy existence. But since he was about sixteen… nothing.

Poetry was for people who had time to spare. Poetry was just one more part of his childhood he'd had to leave behind.

"…It was a very long time ago. I'll have to pass on my turn."

The boys looked affronted. "You can't skip a turn!" cried Squee, knocking over a teacup with one flailing hand.

"No, this is more than a game, senior," added the horned boy. "This is a microcosm of your whole problem."

"_Microcosm_?" he repeated, incredulous. "My problems? What do you know about my problems?"

"That you have them," answered a smug Pepito.

"And that they're more important than you think."

"_Important_? You're, what, seven years old?"

"I'm twelve," the boy corrected, looking offended. "And they _are_. You're just to far under to see it."

"AGH," Edgar practically screamed, "How does everyone in this _goddamn_ universe know everything about me? I don't know any of you; I don't even know where I _am_! I do NOT have to listen to this!"

Edgar knocked his chair to the floor and grabbed a heavy-looking pot. "I don't have magic powers, I don't have problems, and I am _not going to take this!_"

Todd's eyes widened. "Easy there, mister. We were just talking."

"No! I'll tell _you_ who's talking: ME!" the furious man threw his teapot at the boy, missing a serious injury by mere inches. "And I'm saying I want you to _shut up_!"

They shut up.

Slowly, the boys stood. They looked sadly at Edgar, and Todd grabbed his teddy bear.

"If that's what you want," he said quietly, and the two faded out of existence.

The table and all its chairs dissolved into the air, the porcelain shards scattered over the grass disappeared.

"I guess he's still got some learning to do," observed Squee's voice, oddly hollow.

"Si," Pepito's sighed. "Scriabin will be disappointed."

And with that, Edgar was once again alone.

**TBC**


	6. From a Bottle Marked Poison

_**Phantasmaphilia** - to love the creation of one's own mind_

**A Bottle Marked 'Poison' (**Which is a metaphor, you know**)**

**-- **

I'm a loose bolt  
of a complete machine  
What a match, I am half-  
doomed, and you're semi-sweet

-Fall Out Boy

The empty garden was larger than he'd originally thought. The sky was blacked out by a canopy of leaves, so the entire enclosure relied on its phosphorescent flowers to provide light. The result was disconcerting, to say the least.

God. He made such an ass of himself, and in front of children too! It just… made him so angry! How did they know about him? Why did no one explain _anything_ and then expect him to follow along like that? He was sorry, now, that he'd gotten so mad, but honestly…

With a sigh, Edgar took a seat on the strange grass. He reached for a lone glass vial resting on the ground a few inches away, hoping for a bit more tea. That really had been good stuff, and he'd been raised on tea as a child in the south.

The liquid looked vaguely red, but who knew what color it really was with this light. The little bottle was the only drink left, and he was _thirsty_, and there was no way a bit of light trickery was going to put him off his drink. Bottle uncorked, he took a gulp.

Ew. That was definitely not tea. Why would they put such nasty stuff in such a big bottle? It was the size of his hand around—who would want to drink all that?

Wait.

The bottle had _not _been that big a minute ago. He had a very bad feeling.

One glance at the nearest tree told him that he was definitely shrinking. No questions asked. The once tiny vial was now the size of his head, and there was nothing he could do about it.

Down, down, down. Bush height, flower height, grass height… and he came to a halt maybe three or four inches tall.

Blades of neon grass arched over his head like doorways; pebbles he couldn't possibly have seen before, even with glasses on, were suddenly knee-height. Oh yes, had definitely shrunken.

He kicked at a clump of dirt the size of his foot, gazing morosely at the vial now twice his height. What now? He couldn't even tell which was the door was, as if he could reach it anyway.

_On the other hand_, he noted mentally, holding his hand out in front of him, _my vision _has_ cleared up…_

And so Edgar fell back into his natural reaction: he walked. He ambled off in the direction of what he thought might be the gate, winding around the stalks of particularly strong weeds in search of some land mark. There were mushrooms up ahead, some as tall as him, and he thought he spied someone sitting atop the farthest, as ridiculous as that was.

"Hello?" he called hesitantly, wondering if Scriabin might show up at any moment to deride him.

Now that he thought about it, Pepito had mentioned Scriabin too. How did that… that _person_ fit into all of this? He had to have some sort of—

"Yes, what do you want?" an impatient voice cut through his musing. So there _was_ intelligent life on that mushroom!

"Um…" Edgar jumped a pebble and landed at the edge of the fairy circle.

_Fairy circle? I haven't thought of those in ages…_

He walked around the large mushroom and saw the source of that voice up close. A caterpillar of sorts, it sat curled on an indented cap, wearing scores of hobnailed boots—two for each black or white segment—and black gloves on its two hands. It had a gaunt, human face and two forward bending antennae on its otherwise bald head. Bizarre, but rather handsome.

"Well? Who are you?" it demanded, waving a smoking pipe about.

"I…" But Edgar couldn't fashion a response. Who _was_ he? Every time someone asked him that question, he became less and less sure of his answer. "…I can't really answer that, seeing as I don't quite know myself."

"Pft." The caterpillar rolled its eyes, twirling his pipe. The smoke reconfigured into a Z? for some inconceivable reason that would probably made sense to anyone else in the world but him.

"I mean," Edgar continued, feeling a need to explain himself, "My name's not who I am, and my age certainly isn't… definitely not my height—I just lost almost five and a half feet, you know. And I have no idea what else could constitute as what I am."

"Hm." The strange creature narrowed its eyes. "Well, what do you _do_, for a start."

Do? Edgar's mind flashed back to what Higgles said about quests. Well, the only thing in his life that could count was his search for Scriabin, and he did _not_ want to be defined by that, so…

What _did_ he do? He had a job as a pencil pusher, doing work he didn't give a flying fuck in a rolling donut about.

He used to be a lot of things… once he was a—

"Poet," he said, words leaving his mouth unbidden. "I used to be a poet."

"Really?" asked the insect, "Not one of those wanna-be emo poets, I hope. Total shit, that's what they write, always going on about how awful their lives are and how their boyfriend committed suicide—like I want to hear about their problems?"

"Um… no. Not an emo poet. Just a regular poet, spoken word."

"Good." The caterpillar brightened. "Can you recite 'The Conquering Worm'? No, wait, do you have anything of your own?"

Oh no. This again. "It's… been a while."

"Oh," the bug looked disappointed. "Well that's no excuse. I haven't had paper in years, but I can still deliver on the spot. Want to see?"

Edgar would have declined, but there was an unstable gleam in the caterpillar's eye, and he didn't want to find out why. "… Alright. One verse."

The insect grinned unnaturally and puffed himself up.

"_Ponder, friends, the porcupine,_

_Increase your recollection!._

_Take a moment to define,_

_His means of self-protection._"

It crossed its arms—and some of its legs—smiling in a satisfied manor.

Edgar blinked. "Is that the end of it?"

"No," the creature shifted to a scowl, "But you said one verse. So I said _one_ _verse_."

"Oh." Edgar couldn't help but feel disappointed, even though poetry was a waste of his time. The rhythm tugged on something in his throat. "So… what was that 'Conquering Worm' thing you mentioned?"

"I'll tell you!

"Through a circle that ever returneth in  
To the self-same spot,  
And much of _Madness_, and more of Sin,  
And Horror the soul of the plot.

But see, amid the mimic rout  
A crawling shape intrude!  
A blood-red thing that writhes from out  
the scenic solitude!  
It writhes!- it writhes!- with mortal pangs  
The mimes become its food,  
And seraphs sob at vermin fangs  
In human gore imbued.

Out- out are the lights- out all!  
And, over each quivering form,  
The curtain, a funeral pall,  
Comes down with the rush of a storm,  
While the angels, all pallid and wan,  
Uprising, unveiling, affirm  
That the play is the tragedy 'Man,'  
And its hero the Conqueror Worm."

Impressive. The human felt his mind turn to churning, labeling the rhyme sequence and picking apart the imagery like a machine built for nothing else.

"Of course," the caterpillar grinned nastily, cutting in, "The moral is that no matter how pretty or rich you are, everyone dies, and the worms chow down on your corpse. A good lesson, I think."

"Er… right. It's good," Edgar forced out, attempting to appear only mildly interested. "Who's it by?"

"Edgar Allen Poe. Classic southern gothic. Are you _sure_ you were a poet?"

Yes, he was sure. It had been more than a couple years, and Edgar Allen Poe had always seemed forbidding—He was the man's namesake, in fact. If he tried hard, he could even vaguely recall some of the shorter pieces… but he simply nodded.

"Huh. You should really take it up again. It says a lot about a person," the caterpillar pointed out, attempting to blow one of the thick antennae out of his vision, "and it makes pretty good catharsis too. I used to be an artist, you know. And one day, it all just… dried up. Like rubbing alcohol on a frying pan. Worst days of my life, just staring at that empty canvas…"

It glared up at the sky.

"So… what did you do?" Edgar asked, intrigued.

"I died." The bug twirled his pipe. "And then I came back. Still no talent. And then I realized that nothing could bring my inspiration back except me. So I went out and looked for all the beauty in the world, even the sad parts, because all I'd ever looked at before was the ugly."

"But the ugly is a much bigger part of the world," Edgar protested, "You can't ignore it."

The strange chimera leaned forward, eyes as bright as the glowing grass. "No, you can't ignore it. But you can learn to see past it. Human being are so negative, one bad thing outweighs three good things. It's their biggest flaw, the one that prevents them from changing all the other flaws. I lived that for so long, you know?"

He did know, actually.

"But finally, I forced myself to look at things differently. There's good things out there, things that get obscured by all sorts of petty problems. Take your life for example. What do you have that's terrible?"

The man thought for a moment--there was a lot to list. "A degrading job, a boss who can't leave well enough alone, obnoxious coworkers, depression, a leaking roof, I'm technically an orphan, I have repressed memories, there's a strange man who looks like my twin popping up everywhere and I haven't written a poem in over seven years. In fact, I'll probably never write one again, since I barely have time enough for sleeping let alone writing."

The grass rustled slightly in the wind, and neither of them said a word. The insect gave him a steady look that said, _is that all you've got_?

Finally, it said, "How about the positive side of your pity-infested life?"

Positive? He recalled that smear of good things Higgles had pointed out… a place to start.

"I… have a house. Which is something everyone doesn't have. And I have job. It pays well…" he hesitated, thinking, "And Scriabin seems like he wants to help me, in his own way. I'm not suffering from any medical disorders, and I seem to be getting better vision with each minute."

A nod of approval. He was going in the right direction.

"I have religion, I have a pretty good sense of style, there are no termites in my house, my coworker probably doesn't have anything against me personally, and I'm alive. I can probably work with a professional on those repressed memories, if I want to." Edgar smiled incredulously. "That's the point, isn't it?"

"Yeah, sure. Don't fix it unless it's broken, Guam is great. Mhm." The caterpillar stared off into the distance, idly twirling his pipe. The smoke rose up into a fantastic shape, almost like tentacles.

"Guam?" Edgar echoed, wondering where the conversation had derailed.

"What?" The insect shook its head and refocused on him, "Huh? Who are you?"

The confused man sighed. "Maybe one day I'll have an answer to that question," he muttered, and went back to walking.

Always walking.

After fighting his way through a forest of grass stalks, Edgar finally caught sight of the Wall's bottom--only to stumble over a pebble and tumble headfirst into the garden's stonewall, which just happened to be relatively downhill. He smacked into the stone and came to rest upside-down, feet against the masonry, trying to stop his vision from spinning.

Dizzied as he was, the wall above him seemed to stretch on into infinity, maybe all the way to the seat of God himself. Well damn, he had some questions to ask the deity anyways.

"You sure have a fucked up sense of humor, God," Edgar groaned. He peeled himself off of the wall, very conscious of sore spots.

"You know, I've been told that before," Scriabin laughed from somewhere on Edgar's left.

The poor man turned his head quickly to face the new arrival, giving himself a grass-based rug-burn.

"Of course, I dare to think I'm rather witty. Though I _do_ appreciate the use of my proper title."

"Jesus Christ…."

"No, no. I'm the _other_ one."

Edgar groaned again, this time to prevent himself from repeatedly bashing his head into the ground. Why did Scriabin always manage to find him when nothing else was left to go wrong?

"Ah but you look out of sorts, my dear. You are just too thick, really. It's a wonder Johnny ever put up with you."

"Johnny?" Edgar asked in confusion. He'd never known a Johnny that he could remember.

"Hm. I shouldn't have mentioned that. But you know what they say about old habits—they just won't _die_," Scriabin said, a cruel tone in his voice.

It almost sounded like…

"And by the way," his doppelganger added, voice mostly reverting to its typical condescension, "The way out is about ten paces thataway, but you'll have to crawl."

Edgar sat up quickly, head spinning. "Wait! I know an exit line when I hear one, and we need to talk. Now."

The florescent grass illuminated Scriabin's face, shaping it into sharp panes and turning the familiar visage utterly alien. Suddenly, he was rather worried about making the mysterious man angry. Very worried. And the worry rose up from places that he had long forgotten existed.

"My dear Edgar," He said, "you will be getting no explanations from me. I can't just _tell_ you what you want to know, and you won't be taking the easy way out again. You _will_ keep going, or so help me…"

It was strange. The veiled anger was… not new exactly, but it hadn't been before, that he could see. What did he do? What brought it on, and how could he stop it? He really wished that Scriabin would go back to being snarky and vague, as annoying as it had seemed before.

"Now, I'm going to go before I do something I'll regret." The stranger stood.

That same alien glow flashed across his glasses, and for some reason, some indefinable reason, it seemed to demand an apology… attention, appreciation, _admission_…

"But you know, for future—and past—reference… if you drink heavily from a bottle marked poison," he said, lips a tight line, "it's sure to disagree with you sooner or later."

And then, of course, he was gone.

**TBC**


	7. Allegorical Memorial

_**Phantasmaphilia** - to love the creation of one's own mind_

**Allegorical Memorial **

**-- **

You're such an _inspiration_ for all the ways

I will never, ever choose to be.

Oh so many ways for me to show you

how your savior has abandoned you...

_Judith_ -A Perfect Circle

There was indeed an opening in the wall, large enough for the inches-tall Edgar to squeeze through without much fuss. On the other side, the sun shone brightly and the grass was a healthy, dull green. Thank God.

He fell sprawled on the ground beside the stone, longing for his glasses in an abstract way. They made him feel more… protected, even if his vision was almost twenty-twenty by this point.

When had it gotten that good?

Ever since he woke up, the world had been nothing but questions wrapped up into questions and tied with _more_ questions. It had started with a 'where am I' and quickly derailed into a mire of musings and confusings. Wait. 'Confusings' isn't a word.

"Damnit," Edgar groaned.

And now he was cursing too. Brilliant. Tell us Edgar, can you break any more personal rules today?

And what had Scriabin gotten so mad about? He hadn't even done anything—all he'd said was that they needed to talk. It was a completely innocent demand. It wasn't like he'd said some sort of rude, provocative thing!

On the other hand, Angry Scriabin had truly scared him on a base level. It wasn't like the carbon copy could _do_ anything to him… Edgar could probably hold his own in a fight, if it came down to that… but that wasn't what worried him. What was he scared of?

More questions.

Somehow, he found himself on his feet and walking, at that. Rocks slid into the distance and grass stalks flew by, and he realized that he was running. Running _away_ from… something. Why bother naming it?

Suddenly, the grass was behind him, and a dusty plain stretched out before him. He tilted his head up to see the sky, digging his heels into the dirt to stop his frantic dash. The blue (thank god, _blue_) above him was unbroken from the wall he'd escaped to far ahead, empty of even a sun.

If Edgar had been the type, he would have fainted. The only thing worse than running in circles was running forward into… that.

But the thought of Scriabin kept him going somehow—what if the man showed and found him curled up in surrender on the ground? He'd never live it down. So, though his feet hurt fearfully and his brain was short-circuiting, he trudged on.

That, too, felt natural.

Unbidden, words spun themselves into his thoughts, and he was appalled to find that they were in verse. Poetry, and he hadn't even been trying. And he wasn't sure whether it bothered him because it was self-indulgent and frivolous, or because it meant that this strange place was affecting him on such a deep level.

"If you'd just let it in, this would be a lot less painful."

Edgar whirled to find the intruder—who had to be Scriabin, of course, by now he would recognize that voice blindfolded and hung over a bonfire—but saw no one at all. The plain was completely empty, just as it always had been.

"Great," the lost man sighed, "Now I'm hearing things. What's next, talking to myself?"

And then he realized that was exactly what he'd been doing, and shut up.

Minutes stretched into hours like fluffy wool spun into yards of thread, and still there was nothing in sight. He turned to look behind, and even the wall was gone. There was, quite literally, nothing to be seen in any direction.

The dark earth was straight as a razor, and even the sky seemed sharp, like you could cut yourself on it if you reached too high. Edgar turned slowly, taking in the full panorama, feeling once again like there was something eerily familiar about this place. More steps forward, or maybe it was backward, and a dark spot appeared on the horizon.

Insatiably curious, he hurried towards it, watching it grow from an ink blotch to a tiny Y, to a full sized tree. He stopped in front of it and slid off his shoes, climbed into the joint where the two main branches met. From that spot, he could see that on his left, the land rose gradually into the sky like a ramp to the sun… and that the sun was just over the edge of it, obscured at ground level.

This, too, was familiar. His eyes landed on the patch of smoothed bark under his fingers, worn to polish by countless children's hands. His hands. By god, he _did_ know this tree.

He'd come here as a child, living an hour's drive away from Atlanta Georgia. The tree was at the edge of his foster parent's neighborhood, just down the dirt road and at the very front of the forest. He used to climb up there when he was lonely, which was quite often, and look up at the sky for hours.

The neighbor children had never liked him… creepy child with the vacant eyes, always alone… glasses, dusty brown hair, oversized nose… not like the rest of us, did you hear about his parents…

Edgar's eyes snapped open, though he didn't remember closing them.

Yes, the tree was the very same one. It had looked like this the day that his foster mother came out looking for him, trying to tell him that he was to leave with his grandmother in two days. Sharon had never felt comfortable around him, he knew that. If anything, he was grateful that she took care of him like she did, despite her uneasiness.

But why was his tree out here in the middle of this… desert? And why were all of the leaves dead, even though it was spring? At least, he thought it was spring. It had certainly looked like spring before. But here in this empty land, how could he know?

He looked down and saw Scriabin resting against the trunk, arms loosely folded. Silent and unassuming, for once in his life.

"Vacant, isn't it?" he sighed, finally, "And to think you spend so much time here."

"Scriabin," he started, too tired for anything but a whisper, "I've never been here before in my life."

"How I wish that were true. Edgar, you can't tell me you don't feel it."

"Feel what?"

"_It_." The doppelganger gestured tiredly into the open land. "The whole place. You're so closed off it's amazing, really. Can you do what I ask for once? Can we not fight about something?"

"…alright."

"Then close your eyes, my dear. Now, relax."

Against, all logic and pride, Edgar did so.

"Focus on the sensation in your fingertips. Your shoulders. Your eyelids. Now, try to feel the air."

Eyes flipped open. "What?"

"The air. It has feelings of its own. Just… focus."

At first, all Edgar could feel was silly—what was this, meditation? He never put stock in it before, so why start now? It was just another of the ridiculous things everyone around here liked to throw around. But… Scriabin really seemed to care about this…

Focus. Air. Nothing at first, but then he felt something stirring in the wind. Deep and brown, hinting of blue, and worn to soft thinness… it pulled at his chest and his eyes. Brows knitted together, he lifted a hand to get a better feel, trying to touch that dark thing tied to the threads of the breeze. It was a tingle along his shoulder blades, tightness in his chest, a stinging at the corners of his eyes…

"Loneliness," he breathed, looking down at his companion.

"A little more than that, but yes," Scriabin agreed.

"But… the tree…"

"It's where you go when you're alone. This whole place," he said, "is the feeling of being the only person in the world, cut off and blocked from the rest of the universe. You come here depressingly often."

Edgar thought about that for a long time. The implications… what it meant for him on so many levels…

"So…" he started, "…everything here is… symbolic."

The copy turned to look up at him, a ghost of his former smirk on his lips. "You caught on faster than I expected, my dear."

"Any chance you'll let me go home, now?"

"None at all, I'm afraid."

"Oh well."

The sky was still sharp as broken glass, but the air felt a little less empty now. He thought he saw a shadow on the horizon, as if the land were slowly shrinking as the minutes passed. Why, he wasn't sure.

"How do you know me?" Edgar asked, not expecting an answer but trying anyways.

"How many times are you going to ask me that?"

"As many times as it takes."

"My, my. When did you grow a spine?"

Edgar scowled. "I've always had one. Now tell me something useful, please."

Scriabin looked caught between a scowl and a grin. His lip twitched. "Fine. Ask me a question."

A thought: How did he know that Scriabin wouldn't lie? Why was he willing to talk now, when he'd been angry for no reason only hours ago?

"Why do you look so much like me?" Best to start with the beginning.

His carbon copy looked thoughtful. "I suppose it's because I am Scriabin."

"That's not an answer."

"No," Scriabin smirked, "not enough for _you_. Instead, how about this: it is, perhaps, because I am everything you hate, and everything you love."

"Oh God," Edgar moaned, "You're a symbol too? I can't believe this. I'm having a conversation with a goddamn _metaphor_."

Scriabin reached up and casually yanked his companion's foot, pulling him out of the safe hold of the branches and onto the unforgiving dirt.

"It's much more complicated than that, my dear boy. I _am_ symbolic, but I'm also my own entity with my own personality and agenda. Of course, _you_ wouldn't care about all the subtle nuances of my character. Only how it boils down to _you_."

"That's not fair!" the grounded man half-shouted, "you think you know everything about me, but you don't!"

"Ah contraire, dear Edgar." Scriabin smiled cruelly, kneeling at his side. "I do know absolutely _everything_."

And then, of course, he was gone.

--

That shadow on the edge of the horizon was, in fact, a house. Nothing showy, just a small cottage that Edgar found to be unlocked and uninhabited. The air inside was pretty normal, which he hoped meant that Scriabin wouldn't feel the need to pop up at another inopportune moment. As if his epic journey through Un-wonderland had ever been anything but inopportune.

Swallowing his nervousness at not-breaking-but-still-entering, Edgar settled into the couch and proceeded to stare blankly into space, hands worrying the faded floral pattern of the fabric. Somehow, he just knew that the little house was uninhabited despite its tidy state.

So what did he know? The tired man grabbed a scrap of paper and made a list of everything he'd been told since he arrived, that he could remember, in the hopes that it could begin to unravel the mystery around him.

_Scriabin doesn't know what he is._

_I ought to have a quest_

_I have spooky powers_

_The laws of physics/reality do not apply here_

_The City of Blood is related to me somehow_

_I should not deny my heart (?)_

_Everybody knows all about my problems_

_Poetry is, apparently, not a waste of my time_

_Scriabin knows more about me than I do_

_I am a very lonely person_

Edgar frowned at the last line, sorely tempted to erase it. It was very hard for him to admit that he had problems, even the obvious, desperately-needed-to-be-corrected ones. But he'd have to deal with it if he ever wanted to figure things out—which he did. He went on.

_Physical places are symbolically linked to my personality_

_Scriabin is everything I hate (and love)_

So… what did that mean? Logically, the conjunction of impossible rebellion within the laws of reality and actual places in the world corresponding to his emotional state implied that…

This was a dream.

Was that possible? How could he know for sure? Edgar pinched himself, stupidly. What was the point of that?—he'd already broken his nose in this adventure, and if _that_ didn't wake a man up then nothing would. It hurt like a you-know-what, too.

If, in fact, the whole experience was a horribly screwed up dream, then what did that make Scriabin? Dream characters are wont to know all manner of things they shouldn't, as was Scriabin, and it might explain their strange resemblance.

But, dreams didn't normally give you the reasoning or the time to realize they were dreams. Edgar's never had, at least. And they tended to lack a lifelike continuity, due to the rambling lack of sophistication in the human subconscious. His experiences, on the other hand, had been very true to life in that regard.

Conundrums wrapped in paradox sprinkled with riddles.

A shadow across the wooden floorboards caught his eye, temporarily pushing back his wild speculations to make room for simple adrenalin bursts. The shadow fell from the doorway, where lamplight from the porch illuminated a dark figure.

Edgar tripped in his haste to leave the couch.

"What are you doing in my house?" The shadow demanded, her voice feminine but low despite that.

"I'm sorry, I found it open and I thought that no one lived here and there was no lock and…" Edgar trailed off as she stepped further into the room.

She wore faded brown trousers and a baggy white shirt, her purple hair was pulled into two messy pigtails on the crown of her head. The beauty mark on her cheek moved when her thin lips tightened.

"You know, there's serious penalties for trespassing on royal land," she growled, hands on hips.

"No, I… but… royal?" Edgar mumbled, wondering how this place could belong to royalty. "What… are you the groundskeeper or something?"

She glared dangerously. "I'm the Queen, you shithead."

Woops.

The man took a deep breath. "I apologize for trespassing; I thought that this place was abandoned. Can I make it up to you somehow?"

The queen gave him a regal once-over. Apparently, his dirty striped shirt and scuffed shoes passed the test, because she gave him a curt nod.

"My court will be here shortly. Come outside and we'll see about making even."

_Here we go again, _Edgar thought. He'd known enough women to know this wasn't going anywhere fun.

But at least Scriabin wasn't here.

The queen led him out the door and into the garden—never mind that there had been no garden there when Edgar entered the house—and towards one particular topiary, shaped like a giraffe. She seemed to be rather annoyed with it, if the narrowed eyes and glares were anything to go by.

"Is there something wrong with that topiary?" he asked, but cautiously.

The queen scowled. "It was _supposed_ to be rearing like the noble steed of a knight. Instead, some asshole decided to make it stand there like a cow waiting to be tipped. Someone's going to pay for that."

A trumpet sounded, cutting off Edgar's next question, and five men on horse back came prancing into the greenery, resplendent in shining armor. The queen tapped her foot impatiently as they executed flawless maneuvers and generally showed off, deliberately moving so that the light bounced off their immaculate white suits.

"Yes, yes," she said, walking into the middle of the exhibition and thus forcing the knights to halt. "That's very nice and I'm sure your lords are proud of you, but _where_ is my court?"

The knight on the farthest right answered, "Oh, they're… um…" he stopped and glanced around.

Edgar was pretty sure he saw a vein throbbing in the queen's temple. "_Don't_ tell me they stopped for pizza again."

The armored men all shuffled and looked at each other. "They… didn't stop for pizza?"

"AAARG!" the woman yelled, roundhouse kicking the leafy giraffe. "What am I supposed to _do_ with you people?"

No one else seemed to be saying anything, so Edgar piped up, "You could offer to have pizza waiting for them wherever you're going to? That way, they wouldn't have to stop."

"But… I hate pizza."

"Well," the unarmed man replied, "You don't have to eat any, you know."

A moment of silence passed, while the royal debated the pros and cons of Italian cheesy pie and the knights all looked very confused. "Okay," she finally said, "for now, just track them down and tell them to bring the pizza along, okay?"

The queen sighed as her soldiers went galloping off. "I guess we're going to have to wait a while longer," she murmured, "by the way, I'm Queen Devi of Sporkshire. You can call me _lady_ Devi."

**TBC**


	8. Somethings, Men, and Psychopaths

_**Phantasmaphilia** - to love the creation of one's own mind_

**Somethings, Men, and Psychopaths**

And so, we near the end.

**-- **

I don't care if you want me,

'cause I'm yours, yours, _yours_,

anyhow

_-_Marylin Manson

Devi's subjects were a lively bunch, you could say that much for them.

They seemed to take pride in looking as unkempt as possible, and they all seemed to ignore Edgar as if he was one of the topiaries even when he was speaking with the queen; they just pushed him aside and started talking at her, and she had to explain (sometimes violently) how she was already engaged and would they please leave her alone for once?

Edgar decided that being queen was an unfortunate lot in life.

"Anyways," Devi was saying, after being interrupted for the fourth time, "you really shouldn't be surprised to wake up in your bed in the middle of the forest. Why, it's perfectly normal, principally if you have particularly interfering persons involved in your business."

"Sounds like Scriabin, alright," Edgar muttered. "It's just that I feel like I'm missing something important, you see. And I really want to go home."

"Hm." Devi glanced off into the crowd and gestured at one of her attendants. "It sounds to me like you're really just _waiting _to find out. You're being blocked, somehow. Maybe you're blocking yourself? Around here, people can know anything they want to know, if they know what it is they want."

"…Right."

"And the fact that you can't tap into it _could _be because you aren't from around here, but I think it's because you're cut off somehow. I might be able to help you."

The attendant scampered over, holding a blank canvas and a set of paints balanced precariously on top of it. That was… er… well, _why_?

"If there's something waiting for you on the outside, I can probably pull it through and catch it in paint. I'm very good."

Edgar didn't think that sounded in any way logical, or even possible, but he kept quiet for politeness' sake. It was rude to tell someone they couldn't do something they claimed to be good at, and, well, it was nice of her to offer.

The queen sat and picked up her entire arsenal of paints, smeared them randomly back and forth, coating the canvas until it was an inch thick with layers and rather brown. She looked it over carefully and leaned back, satisfied.

"Er…"

"Shush."

She ran a finger over the hideous painting, following imaginary lines and intricate patterns as if they were clear as day and just as obvious. There was a tool sitting to her left, with a small, bent head on one end and a steel corkscrew on the other, which she picked up and tapped on the canvas.

Edgar was about to ask her what _that_ was when she stabbed the corkscrew end rather violently into the layers of paint, twisting and yanking and repeating. Flakes of paint filled the air.

As he watched over her shoulder, he thought he saw shifting outlines, blurry almost-pictures within the shifting canvas—first a man hanging in cruciform, then a telephone, then the night sky, then a pistol… the images moved too fast for him to catch them all, but these stuck. And then, as the last chunk of paint fell away, there was at last a true scene before him.

"Go on," Devi said, twisting her head back to meet his eyes, "take a look."

So Edgar did.

He saw a vision of himself—a memory, almost—standing beside another man, who was wrapped in a trench coat, his face obscured by opaque, mirrored sunglasses.

_They stood at the side of a road running between two buildings, glass windows above just as dark and reflective as his companion's spectacles. Frigid autumn air whipped their coats to and fro and rattled through the almost-alley, shadowed by the skyscraper looming far overhead._

_"Have you ever thought about those windows?" asked Edgar, looking up._

_"No," his companion relied shortly. "It's just glass."_

_"Maybe it is," conceded Edgar, face still upturned, "But maybe not. How many times do we pass them by, look up and run our eyes across a line of them, never once stopping to consider them individually?"_

_"Edgar, it's just glass."_

_"But every pane of glass is different. Each one of them reflects a different reality, a different facet of the universe." Edgar leant against the railing._

_"It's a refraction of light. It doesn't even look the same as the real world," the other insisted._

_"That's the beauty of it. A different perspective on life, captured in those windows. Imagine how the world looks to the people inside… what do they see when they look down on us?" the older man wondered. "On you?" _

_They stood in silence for a time, the wind winding around them and through their coats, eagerly seeking out the last pockets of warmth. Tinted windows stared down at them like unreadable rectangular eyes, sharing the chilly fall afternoon. _

_Finally, the second man pulled off his blackened glasses and looked hard at his companion. Eyes dark as the windows above, and just as unreadable, he said, "You've changed, my boy."_

_Edgar smiled sadly at the man and gently pulled the glasses from his hands. _

_"We all have, Scriabin."_

The real Edgar was quiet for a long time, silently repeating the things he saw, trying to make sense of them.

"But…" He started, and Devi looked back at him again, "that never _happened_. I never met Scriabin before I came here."

"Some people," Devi said, "believe that there are a hundred different ways your life can unfold, all branching out from choices that are made one way or the other. Parallel realities, splitting off at key moments when everything could have been different. And they all exist at the same time, separately, tied together by the common thread of existence."

Edgar pondered that, as the queen stood and wandered off to berate a particularly crude jester, leaving him alone in the corner of the garden, with the spidery trees blocking out the sky just overhead. There was a sound behind him.

"Scriabin," he said, not bothering to look back.

"My boy," the strange man replied, settling into a spot on the ground just beside Edgar.

"I think I've been here long enough," Edgar said, quietly. "Whatever you brought me here to tell me, I'm ready to listen."

Edgar caught a shift of black glass in his peripheral vision, and a sigh. "To tell you the truth, I'm not sure where to begin."

"Not used to explaining things?"

"Obviously."

They sat without speaking while Scriabin presumably wrestled out a good line of explanation, and Edgar pondered the shape of the universe, as if his thoughts were slowly dripping honey, impossible to speed, impossible to pull back.

"I'll start with me, since in my mind, I came before you," Scriabin started.

Edgar nodded.

"Once upon a time," Scriabin said, "there was a boy whose parents ignored him. One night, he went to visit his grandmother. Something important did not happen. The boy grew up, alone but refusing to be lonely, living an uninteresting life.

"When he was an adult, with a stable job and a livable place to sleep, something interesting finally happened to him. He was almost killed by a psychopath—a fascinating psychopath, it must be admitted—and he might or might not have been set free. In this story, he was. In the dark places of his mind, he remembered with longing the adrenalin rush, the complex puzzle, the danger of this one event. But it was pathetic, so he locked it away with all the other things he refused to acknowledge.

"But you see, things separated often develop a life of their own, especially when the supernatural is involved. And what the man did not understand was that he was now, unknowingly, intertwined with the Otherworld. Time passed. The psychopath, inexplicably, became friends with the man, who locked more and more away in response to the pressure and insecurity of his situation. Something was born.

"The Something understood what the man did not, although not entirely. It longed to know more, to be independent, to contain its own reality. The hunger was incredible. It learned to hate the man, because the man made mistake after mistake, denied what was obvious, made choices that even a Something—newly born—would not be foolish enough to make. And as time passed, and the Something came to understand the meaning of Existence, he also came to fear Death, who seemed to be the man's new best friend.

"And still, between the fear and the hatred, there were bright moments, simple things—the Something experienced almost-life, and moments when the hatred seemed irrelevant. And in those moments, he knew that he might perhaps like the man if things were different---certainly, he knew, he would not like to live without the man, infuriating as he usually was.

"Horrible things happened. The Otherworld took an interest in the affairs of mortals again, and the man found himself in a terrible predicament, and the Something was dragged along for the ride. The Something, now surrounded on every side by hatred, denial, fate, death, and a life that was always just out of reach, went searching for a way out. A way out for himself and the man, if he could manage it.

"A being with no body, who exists only within the mind of someone else, has peculiar abilities. There are places that stretch between the minds of humans, roads the lead from one time to another, valleys between the dreams of two lovers. The Something sought out those places where one thing blurs into the rest.

"He found, after much searching, another man, who also was once a boy whose parents ignored him. But one night, he did not go to visit his grandmother, and something important happened. A horrible thing. A thing that twenty years in the future, still haunts his dreams. And the Something reached into that man's mind, and found himself already there, silently awaiting the spark of life. It occurred to the Something then that, if he could not manage to save his own man and his own self, then perhaps he could live safely—peacefully—here in this place, with this man-who-was-not-his-man. And he would have time to seek out freedom, unmolested.

"So the Something sent himself into that man, and brought the waiting-him to life. And then, smaller than he had been before, the first Something left, taking the present with him, and leaving himself behind. I lived in _you_, with all my old memories and beliefs, for a time, keeping silent as I acclimated to my new world—so much like the old, but also different. Cleaner. Sane. Here, without me to second guess you and without the psychopath to endanger you, you were more like the man I remembered from those bright moments.

"And I found that I rather liked you, when you weren't bemoaning the dullness of your life and the stupidity of your coworkers. And I thought, with all of the universe and humanity at my disposal, why not help you out a bit? It would make living here more comfortable, and we could get off on the right foot this time, without the danger and anxiety in the way.

"So I sent you a dream or two. I opened up the part of you that was me, and let the edges touch. And then, tonight, I brought you to this place so that we could have a proper hello, and a lesson. You're very stubborn, my dear. I had to shock you.

"And 'here' is a lovely little spot where dreams have their own consciousness. Freud—or maybe it was Jung, I never can keep them straight—stumbled on it in one of his hypotheses. This is a spot where all of humanity touches, where every mind that's ever existed leaves footprints and little graffiti notes on the boardwalk. This, my dear Edgar, is your corner."

"A long story," Edgar frowned.

"Well, it is what it is."

The two beings glanced over at the frolicking court, noting that the topiary giraffe was now decidedly headless.

"What ever happened to the first Something—I mean, you?"

Scriabin shrugged. "I don't know. I've tried to reach out to him, but I can't seem to locate the other reality. But we aren't the same person now, you know, and I'm not certain that I want to be. His view of life is extremely bleak, and he's very angry. Very angry."

That soaked in for a moment. Somewhere out there in the multiverse, there was another Edgar who was actually worse off than he, so badly off that a psychological parasite actually tried to jump ship before things could totally go to Hell in a hand basket.

"So… what are you?" he finally asked.

Scriabin shrugged again. "There isn't a word for it. It's not schizophrenia; it's not disociative identity disorder, MPD, whatever; and it's not possession… I suppose I could be one of the Shadow People… found them while I was wandering around here—did you know that the swastika pattern appears in almost every culture in the world?"

"I think I'd heard it somewhere."

"Fascinating, isn't it?"

"Sure."

Scriabin's hand twitched, as if he was going to reach out and then thought better of it. He turned so that Edgar could see his entire face, and his own reflected in the black glasses.

"I just wanted to let you know, my boy," the figment said, "That I was here, you see, and that your life isn't nearly so terrible as it could be. You complain about it a lot, but the truth is you've got the long end of the stick, compared to being insane or dead. Don't you think?"

"I suppose," Edgar agreed, thinking.

"Well don't act so down, my dear," Scriabin said, cheer sounding forced. "Just because you jumped all the easy transition bits and came crashing into the point of things, that's no reason to look like someone murdered your cat."

"It's just…" the confused man started, "it's just that all this time I thought I was _Edgar_. A specific, if unimportant, person in the world. And now, now I'm one of who-knows-how-many, and I've been this close to a really horrible fate all my life, and I never even knew it."

And all this time he'd been complaining about nightmares and stupid bosses, and all these stupid little things, when he should have been thanking God for how lucky he was. Christ.

"So what?" Scriabin asked, bumping shoulders with his creator. "None of the other Edgars are like _you_. Why do you think I've been trying to get you to introduce yourself without a name? Every being is a different thing, even if they look alike or have the same childhood or the same name. I'm not the same as the other Scriabin, for that matter. I've seen normal things first hand, I've had a civil conversation with you that didn't involve me biting my tongue every two minutes. You are _you_, and we are _us_. No more, no less."

That was true, Edgar supposed. He wasn't _really_ the same person as the other Edgar—to start with, the other Edgar had been raised by his grandmother, presumably, and not a foster family. He knew what the Horrible Thing that Scriabin mentioned had been. From the beginning, they'd been different people.

"So, do I wake up now?" Edgar asked at length, finally turning to properly face Scriabin. His vision was pulled to the dark glasses, his own eyes reflected in them in a strange twisting of reality. Light glanced off of them as Scriabin shook his head, and the light momentarily blinded him.

"You have one last trial," the figment said, "You remember this, don't you?"

Edgar pulled his eyes away and realized that they were no longer with the frolicking nobility and the headless topiary giraffe. Instead, they leaned against an impossibly smooth wall at the end of a road stretching into infinity. He tilted his head backwards and saw perfect blue soaring above his head, so perfect a blue that it glowed red where the light sparked across it.

The City of Blood.

**TBC**


	9. The Crossroads

_**Phantasmaphilia** - to love the creation of one's own mind_

**The Crossroads**

the penultimate chapter

**-- **

We may never understand  
how the Stranger is inspired,  
But he is not always evil,  
and he is not always wrong...

_-_Billy Joel

The walls looming overhead gave Scriabin's skin a strange blue glow. The doppelganger smiled unsteadily, as if he was unused to the expression. "Just goes to show," he muttered, so quietly that Edgar only barely heard him, "I've been here too long, if I'm worried about something as simple as this." Then, louder: "You've been called to adventure, my boy, and you've learned lessons, heard prophets, traveled far and wide--so to speak--and now... you fight the dragon."

Then he reached out, hesitantly, and brushed the side of Edgar's face, pulling back quickly. "Just don't forget all the lessons, my dear. Otherwise we'll have to do this all over again… if we're lucky."

The real man almost asked what Scriabin meant by that, but then the gates were creaking open and Scriabin disappeared in the moments of his distraction. Carefully, he rose to his feet and entered the city, cold air assaulting his skin. He'd always known he'd come back here, hadn't he? Even after Higgles, and Scriabin, and the tea party, and the Tree and the Queen... It all came back to _him_. His insecurity, his questions, his heart. _Dragon indeed_.

There was no strange narration this time, though the footstep-heartbeat remained, and the silence felt rain-cloud heavy, ready to split open at any moment. Blood on the walls, shattered glass in the streets, the far away, flickering castle with its clawlike spires.

All the same.

But this time, the feeling of familiarity, misery, seeped into his skin, and he wondered how he had ever missed it. This time, something in the shadows flitted back and forth, stalking him. Watching him. Normally, he would have ignored it until it either left or made its move, but now he wasn't feeling so passive. Just waiting for things hadn't gotten him anywhere around here, and it wasn't likely to start now.

Edgar marched into the shadow of two buildings and was immediately plunged into darkness. Not shadow-darkness, or even night-darkness, but utter, complete blackness. And then a shape formed out of the darkness, feline and massive, and it glared at him with glowing yellow eyes.

"Despair," it said, slinking around him in a distinctly predatory circle, "awaits you in the shadows of your heart. It will," the creature smirked with no mouth, "devour you. I come to offer you a way out. You have been depressed, you have been slighted, you have been disappointed time and time again, stepped on like a door mat. Why fight the inevitable finish? You will be left with nothing but broken bones and pitiable memories. Give in now, and avoid all the false hope and heartache."

It did seem, for a moment, as if giving up would be a good idea. No more pointless struggles, no more questions, just blackness and oblivion. But then, memories rolled into the darkness, of late night prayer meets, and sushi dinners, and poetry that was useless but wonderful, and the beautiful, impossible world outside these walls, and the creature no longer looked terrifying and enticing.

It looked almost _silly_.

"Why would I give up?" Edgar asked, approaching the shadow, "When there's so many amazing things in the universe? If I gave up, then I wouldn't have _those_ either. Everything is upsides and downsides, and I wouldn't really want to live without either of them. That's not worth losing."

The creature backed away from his approach, a spark of fear in its coal lighted eyes. Edgar reached out and brushed it, and the darkness evaporated into grey light, leaving him once again alone on the street.

On he went, trudging down the coble-stones. That was another thing he'd learned: don't dwell on it, just keep walking. There's always something ahead of you, after all, and the past is over with. All you can do is learn from it, and move on. And now, ahead of him, the crumbling houses awaited, windows watching him from black depths. If stone could look souless, if stone could have a soul to lose, the masonry before him would have long ago given up its own.

Inside one of the houses, a skeletal figure awaited him, leaning against the doorway, shirt tattered and blue hair shaken by the wind. Its sunken eyes regarded him with contempt.

"Loneliness," it said, words barbed with invisible thorns, "is your whole life. You have always been alone, since you were born silent in an empty hospital room, and you will always be alone, until you die a tired old man in your dreamless sleep. What point is a life that you live in the cold, without even hatred to warm your bed at night? No one waits for you, no one cares for you. Give up, and you will be in the company of many."

Now, Edgar was unsure. This thing that looked like it had once been a man, it was right. He always _had_ been alone, even as a child, even when he was surrounded by people. No matter how many stood beside him, he was always apart. What was the point? How could he deny that? There _was _no one waiting for him--

Except that there was.

"That's a lie. I have Scriabin," Edgar said, "and that's enough for now. I don't want the company of the damned—I'd rather live my life alone until the day I die. There are good things in the world that don't require another person to validate."

Now the _wrath_ looked unsure.

"And there are plenty of people out there," Edgar went on, more certain of himself now, "and I can find them, if I want to. All I have to do is look. You can't offer me anything I want."

The figure crumbled into dust and was whipped away on the wind, and Edgar walked on, shaken a little, but confident. He turned a corner and nearly slipped to the ground, feet sliding on a coating of fresh, shimmering blood.

A serpent, coated in red, gazed down at him with sneaky pupils. It lowered its head and looked Edgar straight in the eye.

"Evil," it said, "waits behind every corner. It cannot be stopped, cannot be dissuaded. It is more terrifying than death, because it can be avoided, and stronger than Good, because it can corrupt. The world is inundated with it. Horrible things happen. War, murder, terrorism, orphans. Your neighbor's wife is beaten to death as you return from evening service. Your coworker is shot for being a Muslim just outside your office window. And one day, it will corrupt you too. Give up now, before it all rusts and falls to pieces."

Somehow, the Serpent knew: Edgar had seen Evil, once, and the memory followed him still. The red eyes and screaming children of his dreams were its herald, and he knew that he had never truly escaped it, only delayed its conquest. That, to _avoid_ that, surely was it was a suitable surrender? But then, who would fight against it? No, no...

"I can't give up just because there are terrible things in the world," Edgar replied, summoning willpower enough to glare at the snake. "The only thing worse than doing the wrong thing is sitting by while someone else does it. I can't give up, because then it would win."

"But you haven't done anything," the serpent pointed out, eyes glittering. "How can you claim to fight the darkness if you only sit at home in your armchair and read psalms?"

The human pondered that for a moment, then replied, "The very existence of a good person in the world is enough. I'm there if anyone needs me, and I do little things, small things that spread out and have unknown consequences. That's enough."

The snake gave him a baleful look and then dissolved into a puddle of blood, which Edgar treaded through, unafraid.

The castle was closer now, and the heartbeat-footsteps louder, and the sky darker. Dark clouds seemed to be rolling in from somewhere, although it had looked sunny in every direction outside of the City. Thunder, in the distance, resonated in the stone houses and the glass-like walls, creating a dissonant music. It sounded like heartbreak. The City, he realized, was fighting him.

A second roll of thunder, closer this time, and a final figure stepped out from behind the house ahead, arms crossed, lips taunt. It glared at him from behind mirrored glasses, trench coat fluttering behind it. A string of red yarn wound through its hair.

"Failure," it said, with a smile that was cold rage. "You really are pathetic, my dear. Lying to yourself like this. Really. Thinking I was your friend."

Edgar gaped at Scriabin, confused and apprehensive. This made no sense. And it wasn't even the nonsensical kind of nonsense he was used to now; it was complete, impossible contradiction. And it was _wrong_.

"Come now, Edgar," Scriabin said, laughing mirthlessly. "You should know better than to trust the evil twin. But then, you _are_ a failure. Everything so trite, so pointless. My dear, lovely Edgar, you should have _known_ I would lie. You should have known I would toy with you. You should have just given up. There are quite a few things you _should_ have done, and very few you actually did. Pathetic."

"Then why did you…"

"This is _your_ head, my boy," the figment said, teeth knife-sharp, "I had to get you here before I could take you out. You're weak here. Vulnerable. Can't you feel it? Deep down, in the depths of your soul, you _want_ to die. The city _wants you to fail_."

"No," Edgar murmured, stepping back. "This… I refuse to believe this."

The dark being made a _shoo_ motion. "Refuse all you want. I don't care. I'm getting rid of you anyways."

And that was when Edgar knew.

"No," he said, loudly this time. "No, you aren't Scriabin. Not my Scriabin. The one I know, he'd never let me believe something that wasn't true, not even if we were both drowning in our own _blood_ at the time. He's stubborn like that. He'd refuse to let me deny something so obvious, even for a minute, even if he _was_ going to kill me."

The human stalked up to his creation, meeting the taken-aback eyes through two pairs of glasses. He could feel them looking back, even if he couldn't see them.

"I'm not giving up, you liar. You aren't Scriabin, and you _can't hurt me!"_ Edgar shouted, reeling back and punching the figment dead in the face. "And I'm not pathetic!"

The Not-Scriabin stumbled back, wavering until you could see right through him, a dark Edgar-shaped cloud, and then he sank into Edgar's body, slipping into place like a missing cog.

A raindrop broke across his nose.

Edgar could feel the new space inside of himself, as if a hole had been filled that he couldn't remember digging. He walked on, tired now, but assured, reaching out to the citadel and _pulling_ it towards himself—why not? It was his City, _his_ Heart, shouldn't he be able to come and go as he pleased? They had told him he had the power, and he _did_. And then, he was at the steps and the rain was pouring down, beating against the rusty stains that had once been blood. A dark figure was waiting for him on the steps with hands folded into his lap. He glanced up at Edgar's approach.

"So you made it here," he said, rain dripping between his eyes.

Edgar nodded. He knew this man. How could he forget, when the dreams came every night?

"I'm the last Darkness," the man said, and a flash of lightening glanced off the thick muscles in his arms. "You have to kill me, if you want to end this." He stood gracelessly and pulled out two knives, one he tossed at Edgar's feet, the other he kept.

"Jacob and the Angel," Edgar muttered, gingerly picking up the weapon.

"Not really," the man replied. "I'm every hardship you ever faced, every broken dream, every hatred, every slight, every nightmare that left you crying until it was too late to sleep. I killed your parents."

And indeed, he had.

Twenty years ago, he had been the terror of the town Edgar's parents had chosen to take him, a psychopath and mass murderer, the sicko who stole Edgar's childhood and parents both away with the flash of a knife. And finally, finally, he could get revenge. After the counseling, the repressed memories, the years of loneliness and the _horror_, he could finally fight back.

So why didn't he want to?

Edgar held up a hand, and the rain halted in midair, shimmering, and the man froze, completely still. He could kill the psycho, right now, with a wave of a knife, just like _he'd_ done all those years before. With a wave of his hand, even. It would be so easy.

But he walked closer instead, and looked hard at the man who'd haunted his nightmares for so long. He looked old, and gray, and worn at the seams… and not at all like the monster from his memories. After all these years of suppressing it, Edgar looked at the horror with new eyes. He got it.

It was _over_, and as terrible as it had been, life went on. He looked inside himself, and he couldn't even find that simmering hatred he'd held for so long—angry at life and angry at the bastard who thought it was good fun to murder a kid's parents and drag him off to some dank basement. He was long dead now, and this figment was only that: a figment.

Edgar lowered his hand, and the rain plummeted from its pause in the sky, and the man looked at him again with tired eyes. Edgar reached out and put a hand on the nightmare's shoulder, and managed to smile. "I forgive you," he said, and the effort knocked the breath out of him, made his legs weak. "I... can let you go now."

They were more than words, here. They were a change in the shape of the universe, a shift in reality, and with them the man was gone, leaving nothing behind him.

Then, Edgar was alone, standing on the steps of a castle—which really, up close, looked more like a cathedral. He went to set down the knife and realized that, instead, in his hand was a pair of glasses: shiny and uncracked. He laughed, tucking them into his pocket, because he knew that he didn't need them anymore. He could see just fine.

Through the doors and down the aisle, the floors lit in blues and golds from the stained-glass windows high above, all the way to the altar where a book sat. At the top of the steps, Edgar knelt and picked it up, reverently. Its cover, as he had expected, did not say _Bible_.

It said _Phantasmaphilia_.

Every altar is different, and this one here in the center of the City of Blood was no exception. Cream silk ran atop the table like a shimmering river, the blue-black shadows around him echoing softly with rain, and on the wall above him, there was painted an image. It was a face, with mid-length hair and a just-too-long nose, and glasses that betrayed just a hint of the eyes behind them. Below it, the word was written 'Heart'.

Edgar smiled, and the universe dissolved into crystalline fragments of black glass and delighted laughter.

---

"I had a dream."

"As did I."

"Well what was yours?"

"That dreamers often lie."

"Aye, they lie--in bed, where they dream things true."


	10. And Life Goes On

_**Phantasmaphilia** - to love the creation of one's own mind_

So, the last chapter of Vargas has turned this story into more of an AU than it ever was before. Oh well. It makes me feel better about writing fanfiction of fanfiction. I can't believe I'm done... It's actually kind of sad. But hopefully, you had as much fun on the ride as I did.

**-- **

You could be a sweet dream or a beautiful nightmare,  
either way, I don't want to wake up--  
(Turn the Lights off)

_-_Beyonce

Edgar sat in a dark corner of a smoky café, glaring over a menu at his companion, who was amusing himself by sticking his hand through the little box of sugar packets.

No one else in the restaurant could see him.

"I haven't been out in a while," Scriabin said, by way of explanation, turning his attention to the salt-shaker, "although it was more fun when I had an actual body to interact _with_."

"_My_ body," Edgar muttered, looking back down at the menu.

"Yes, well, there's only so many to go around."

Edgar hummed noncommittally and settled on a vegetarian dish, motioning the waiter over and placing an order while Scriabin amused himself by reaching _through_ a few personal regions of the oblivious waiter's body. Edgar scowled.

"I wish you wouldn't do that," he said, resolving to leave a large tip in return for the imaginary hassle.

"It's not like he can see me," the figment shrugged. "If he could, we'd be out of here before you can say 'protected sex'."

"I hate you," the real man said, shooting imaginary daggers at the imaginary man.

Scriabin beamed. "Of course you do, my boy."

Despite all that, Edgar was actually quite happy with the turn his life had taken in the last month. Occasionally, he worried that he was spending too much time in his own head, but he was happy, and wasn't that what mattered? Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness? And anyway, he still went to work, still went to dinner (obviously), and he'd even started talking to his coworkers.

As it turned out, they weren't _all_ bad.

The meal came, and Scriabin stared at it longingly. Edgar shook is head.

"No, you _cannot_ take possession of my body to eat some lettuce. You know we agreed on this."

"Yes," Scriabin growled, "if by 'agreed' you mean _strong-armed me into an agreement that decidedly favors _you."

"Well," Edgar pointed out, "it was my body first. You're just going to have to live with that."

And the argument went on, following familiar twists and turns that they'd beaten out over the last month or so, occasionally venturing into the decidedly insulting, on one or two occasions almost tender. Life was a lot more interesting now.

"So," the figment was saying, "I was thinking that tonight we could visit Dante's corner of the Super, you know, since you're always so fond of his works."

"I prefer the mystery to remain mysterious, if that's alright with you."

"Fine. Ridiculous notion if you ask me, but it's your head, my dear. How about Lewis Carol?" Scriabin grinned impudently. "I know how much you _love Alice in Wonderland_."

Edgar rolled his eyes. "I've had enough of _that_ for one lifetime, wouldn't you say?"

He remembered hearing once that the native Australians, long ago, had believed that the world of dreams was exactly as real as the one of daylight, and that things experienced there were carried back to this world as much as vice-versa. Scriabin sitting opposite him in the booth, vehemently refusing to visit Mr. Higgles, might have been the perfect proof of that.

As the waiter brought the check, giving Edgar a strange look since he just happened to catch the tail end of a conversation, Scriabin snapped his fingers.

"Of course!" he said, "I don't know how I forgot. Tonight's the night!"

"What night?" Edgar asked, preoccupied with double-checking the prices.

"_The _Night," his companion replied, put out. "_Everyone_ goes there, it's really the place to be. Midsummer's night. Solstice. Dreams. Fairy Land. Any of this ringing bells with you?"

Edgar looked up, remembering something. "I think I may have heard it mentioned the first time I visited… there was a man in a powdered wig…"

"I'd bet you did," Scriabin said, sounding like he was trying not to get too excited. "Time is pretty fluid in the Super. There will be figments from all across existence, and who knows? Maybe one of them can help me out with the whole getting-a-body-thing."

"Maybe," Edgar agreed, not thinking it particularly likely. But who knew?

The imaginary man jumped out of the booth, turning and trying to pull Edgar after him—of course he forgot that he wasn't really there, so his hand just slid through.

His creator sighed. "Okay, we're going. But if something _weird_ happens tonight, I expect you to take me back."

They left the booth and headed for the front desk. Scriabin laughed, and Edgar shot him a silent glare for fear of freaking out everyone in the restaurant. No talking out in the open.

"I don't have to," the doppelganger grinned. "You can do that on your own. All you've got to do is _be_ back at home, and you will be. At home, that is."

_Why the Hell didn't you tell me that when I was wandering around like a fool the first night?_ Edgar though, rather violently. He wasn't very good at communicating via mental connection, but you couldn't exactly demand answers of your alternate personality-cum-best friend in the middle of paying for dinner _out loud_.

"You wouldn't have believed me," Scriabin said, smug. "It's all very _click your heels three times_. I _did_ tell you that you had the power to make reality what you wanted. It was a simple as believing you had the power."

Edgar grunted, a grudging accord.

"Besides," Scriabin went on as they passed through the front door—him, literally _through_, "it would have been so _boring_ if you knew everything. Not much point in that, my dear boy."

And Edgar was caught between being annoyed and amused, because for all of the confusion and exhaustion that adventure had gotten him, it had also gotten him _this_. And, for once, Scriabin really _had_ known best.

Edgar reached out and caught his creation's hand in his, never minding that the smirking man didn't exist.

What was existence, anyway?

FINISSIMO


End file.
